HISTORIC  ENGLISH 


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HISTORIC  ENGLISH 


BY 

JAMES  C.  FERNALD,  L.H.D. 

AUTHOR   OF    "expressive    ENGLISH";    "ENGLISH    SYNONYMS,    AN- 
TONYMS   AND    prepositions";    "a    WORKING    GRAMMAR    OF 
THE    ENGLISH    LANGUAGE,"    ETC.      EDITOR    OF    "fUNK 
&    WAGNALLS    DESK    STANDARD    DICTIONARY"; 
"comprehensive     STANDARD     DICTION- 
ARY";   "CONCISE    STANDARD    DIC- 
TIONARY,"   ETC. 


SECOND     EDITION 


FUNK  &  WAGNALLS  COMPANY 
NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

1921 


Copyright,  1921,  by 
FUNK  &  WAGNALLS  COMPANY 

[Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America] 
Published  in  May,  1921 


Copyright   Under   the   Articles   of   the    Copyright   Convention 

of  the   Pan-American    Republics  and   the 

United  States,  August  11,  1910. 


f-i 


FOREWORD 

"The  English  language  is  a  power  because  it 

is  a  life — the  life  of  a  great  people  expressed  in 

o  words  that  live.     At  each  stage  the  language  has 

o  enshrined,  incarnated,  the  thought  and  deeds  of  its 

present  to  be  the  motive-power,  the  inspiration  of 

the  ages  to  come The  higher  possibilities  of 

^   language  come  through  admiration,  honor,  and  love 
■~    for  the  English  language  as  a  great,  beneficent,  and 

living  power To  put  ourselves  back  in  time, 

(j2  to  let  ourselves  go,  and  mentally  reproduce  the  con- 

2  ditions  and  thoughts  of  the  men  of  other  days, 

develops  the  imagination,  broadens  the  range  of 

thought,  and  makes  the  very  words  of  our  language 

c-  rich  with  the  content  of  centuries." 

These  sentences,  quoted  from  the  author's  last 

previous  book,  are  the  key  to  the  present  work. 

"Some  time  before  I  die,"  he  had  told  his  asso- 

g  ciates,  "I  am  going  to  write  a  book  which  will  shov/ 

i^that  the  English  language  is  what  it  is  because  of 

'J3  the  way  it  came  into  being.    No  one  can  fully  grasp 

cethe  meaning,  and  completely  master  the  use,  of  the 

?3English  language  without  knowing  the  history  of 

J  English  as  a  language." 

-  His  conception  of  it  was  always  that  it  originated 
as  a  language  of  the  common  people,  which  grew 
and  developed  as  their  thought  and  life  and  power 


24579.1 


vi  FOREWORD 

developed.  It  never  lost  its  basic  simplicity  of 
structure  and  directness  of  statement,  but  from 
courts  and  schools,  from  travelers  and  traders,  from 
friends  and  foes,  it  took  to  itself  all  that  it  needed 
to  make  it  express  the  fullest  range  of  thought  of 
the  entire  people. 

In  his  "Working  Grammar  of  the  English  Lan- 
guage" the  author  states :  "Its  lack  of  intricate  and 
complicated  forms  is  ...  .  welcomed  as  an  ac- 
quisition and  an  attainment,  wrought  out  by  the 
conflicts  of  centuries,  with  the  result  that  the  En- 
glish language  has  achieved  a  marvelous  simplicity, 
such  as  no  other  language  ever  attained,  and  has 
made  that  simplicity  compatible  with  exactness, 
force,  and  beauty." 

More  than  ten  years  before  his  death,  the  author 
began  this  book.  He  did  not  hasten  its  publication ; 
it  was  to  be  a  more  personal  thing  than  any  of 
the  other  twenty-five  works  that  bear  his  name, 
and  he  wanted  constantly  to  enrich  and  perfect  it. 
He  let  "Historic  English"  benefit  by  all  the  ideas 
created  in  the  most  mature,  yet  active,  years  of  his 
literary  life. 

By  heredity  and  by  environment,  by  early  training 
and  by  his  entire  life's  work,  James  Champlin 
Fernald  was  well  fitted  to  write  the  vital  "history 
of  English  as  a  language." 

A  descendant  of  Dr.  Renald  Fernald,  who  came 
from  England  to  Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire,  in 
1630,  and  a  son  of  Judge  Henry  B.  Fernald,  he  was 


FOREWORD  vii 

born  in  Portland,  Maine,  in  1838.  He  grew  up  in 
an  environment  where  pride  in  the  history  of  the 
Enghsh-speaking  race  combined  with  uncompromis- 
ing accuracy  in  the  use  of  the  language  itself.  From 
his  early  years  the  study  of  English  fascinated  him. 
At  Harvard  he  did  notable  work  in  English,  among 
other  honors  winning  the  Bowdoin  Prize  in  English 
Composition. 

Determining  on  the  ministry,  he  spent  three  post- 
graduate years  in  Newton  Theological  Seminary, 
graduating  at  the  age  of  twenty-five.  His  expe- 
riences in  the  service  of  the  Massachusetts  Relief 
Association  on  the  battlefields  of  the  Civil  War 
quickened  his  maturity  and  strengthened  his  power 
in  the  ministry,  to  which  a  quarter  of  a  century  was 
devoted. 

Great  as  was  the  power  of  his  spoken  word  during 
this  period,  the  power  of  his  written  word  proved 
greater.  Fighting  the  liquor  traffic  from  the  pulpit, 
he  also  fought  it  with  the  pen,  and  his  writings  were 
reprinted  throughout  the  entire  nation. 

Dr.  Isaac  K.  Funk  was  quick  to  recognize  his 
power,  and  prevailed  upon  him  to  come  to  New 
York,  to  assist  in  editing  the  Voice  and  the 
Homiletic  Review,  and  to  write  his  "Economics  of 
Prohibition,"  whose  arguments  became  the  accepted 
standards  of  the  movement  which  has  finally 
resulted  in  prohibition. 

When  the  staff  of  experts  was  organized  to  pre- 
pare the  Standard  Dictionary,  Doctor  Funk  chose 


viii  FOREWORD 

Doctor  Fernald  for  the  difficult  post  of  editor  of  the 
Department  of  Synonyms,  Antonyms  and  Preposi- 
tions. The  success  of  this  work  led  to  nearly  thirty 
years  of  literary  activity,  with  every  year  adding 
to  his  international  recognition  as  an  authority  on 
the  English  language. 

A  series  of  abridgments  of  the  Standard  Dic- 
tionary; authoritative  works  on  English  and 
rhetoric;  and  a  number  of  notable  books  outside  of 
these  two  fields — compose  that  part  of  the  achieve- 
ments of  Doctor  Fernald's  lifetime  which  are  handed 
along  on  the  printed  page.  A  glance  at  the  list  of 
his  works  elsewhere  in  this  volume  will  indicate 
their  scope. 

With  this  book  and  its  companion  volume,  "Ex- 
pressive English,"  the  series  is  ended :  the  pen  has 
fallen,  and  the  author's  hand,  busy  with  these  chap- 
ters to  the  very  last,  is  laid  to  rest. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Foreword v 

L  Native  English ii 

11.  Anglo-Saxon  Achievement 43 

III.  The  Norman  Transformation   ....  75 

IV.  Anglo-Saxon  to  English  Speech  ...  97 

V.  Chaucerian   English  —  Contemporaries 

OF  Chaucer 133 

VI.  Chaucer 159 

VII.  The  English  Bible 181 

VIII.  English  Etymology  a  Helpful  Study    .  233 

IX.  Specimens  of  Power 253 

X.  English  as  a  World- Language  .    .    .    .281 


I 

NATIVE  ENGLISH 


NATIVE   ENGLISH 

It  becomes  us  to  know  something  of  that  sturdy 
race  who  could  reach  down  through  the  centuries 
and  become  the  linguistic  ancestors  of  the  mighty 
English-speaking  peoples  of  the  modern  world. 

On  the  frontier  of  the  old  Roman  Empire,  as  it 
sank  to  decay,  glimpses  appear  of  some  Germanic 
tribes  too  resolute  to  bow  the  knee  to  Caesar,  but  too 
undisciplined  to  make  head  against  imperial  despot- 
ism, retiring  before  the  Roman  arms  until  they 
found  refuge  along  the  bleak  shores  of  the  North  Sea 
from  the  Rhine  to  the  Elbe,  including  the  penin- 
sula of  Jutland,  the  modern  Denmark.  They  were 
the  elect  of  the  oppressed, — those  who  had  held  out 
because  too  inflexible  to  surrender  and  too  fierce  to 
be  conquered,  too  vigorous  to  sink  under  all  the 
hardships  of  sea  and  land.  Their  very  existence 
was  by  fulfilment  of  the  law  of  the  "survival  of  the 
fittest."  As  the  land  behind  was  closed  to  them,  they 
took  to  the  ocean  and  made  it  their  home  and  their 
highway.  Every  man's  hand  being  against  them, 
they  set  their  rude,  rough  hands  against  every  man, 
and  became  the  most  daring  and  ferocious  of  pirates. 
Their  long,  black,  flat-bottomed  galleys,  capable  of 
being  run  into  any  river  or  inlet,  drawn  up  on  any 
beach  and  pushed  off  at  will  by  sturdy  arms,  speed- 

13 


14  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

ing  across  the  sea,  with  their  broad  sails  supple- 
mented by  ranks  of  strong  oarsmen, — not  the 
chained  galley-slaves  of  Rome,  but  every  man  a 
freeman  and  a  warrior, — would  suddenly  appear  off 
any  defenseless  coast;  the  crew,  dropping  the  oars 
for  sword  and  spear,  would  become  an  invading 
host  of  fighting  men,  sweep  together  what  plunder 
could  be  swiftly  gathered,  and  disappear  across  the 
waters  before  any  organized  force  could  be  mustered 
to  meet  them.*  A  Roman  poet,  Geoffrey  of  Mala- 
terra  (Gaufridus  a  Malaterra),  said  of  them: 
"They  are  foes  fierce  beyond  any  other  foes,  and 
cunning  as  they  are  fierce ;  the  sea  is  their  school  of 
war,  and  the  storm  their  friend;  they  are  the  sea- 
wolves  that  prey  upon  the  pillage  of  the  world," 
The  love  of  the  sea  and  the  instinct  of  battle  were 
in  all  their  veins.  When  Drake,  centuries  later, 
burst  into  the  harbor  of  Cadiz,  destroyed  at  its 
moorings  the  fleet  that  was  gathering  to  subjugate 
England,  and  then  sailed  triumphantly  away,  he  was 
but  repeating  on  a  larger  scale  a  common  exploit  of 
his  Anglo-Saxon  sires. 

*  Chance  has  preserved  for  us  in  a  Sleswick  peat-bog  one  of  the 
war-keels  of  these  early  pirates.  The  boat  is  flat-bottomed,  seventy  feet 
long  and  eight  or  nine  feet  wide,  its  sides  of  oak  boards  fastened  with 
bark  ropes  and  iron  bolts.  Fifty  oars  drove  it  over  the  waves  with  a 
freight  of  warriors  whose  arms,  axes,  swords,  lances,  and  knives  were 
found  heaped  together  in  its  hold.  Like  the  galleys  of  the  Middle 
Ages  such  boats  could  only  creep  cautiously  along  from  harbor  to  harbor 
in  rough  weather,^  but  in  smooth  water  their  swiftness  fitted  them  ad- 
mirably for  the  piracy  by  which  the  men  of  these  tribes  were  already 
making  themselves  dreaded.  Its  flat  bottom  enabled  them  to  beach  the 
vessel  onany  fitting  coast;  and  a  step  on  shore  at  once  transformed  the 
boatmen  into  a  war-band.  From  the  first  the  daring  of  the  English  race 
broke  out  in  the  secrecy  and  suddenness  of  the  pirates*  swoop,  in  the 
fierceness  of  their  onset,  in  the  careless  glee  with  which  they  seized 
either  sword  or  oar. 

— Green,  "History  of  the  English  People,"  vol.  I,  ch.  i,  p.  30. 


NATIVE  ENGLISH  15 

Rome,  beginning  with  the  invasion  of  Julius 
Caesar,  in  55-54  B.  C,  had  conquered  the  southern 
half  of  the  then  savage  island  of  Britain,  stretched 
across  it  her  imperial  highways,  the  wonderful 
Roman  roads,  and  given  the  people  nearly  three 
centuries  of  advancing  civilization.  Cities,  towns, 
and  churches  had  risen,  and  wealthy  Romans  had 
built  there  the  elegant  villas  whose  mosaics,  artistic 
pottery,  and  floors  of  many-colored  tile,  are  still 
found  in  the  ancient  ruins.  Since  the  time  of  Con- 
stantine,  Christianity  had  been  the  established  and 
accepted  religion  of  Britain,  as  of  the  Empire.  But 
when,  in  410  A,  D.,  the  Roman  Empire,  fighting 
for  its  life,  withdrew  its  legions  from  Britain  to 
defend  the  Eternal  City  itself  against  Alaric  the 
Visigoth,  the  Britons  were  so  beset  by  the  Celtic 
tribes,  then  called  Scots  in  Ireland  and  Picts  in  Scot- 
land, that  in  desperation  they  summoned  the  pirates 
of  the  North  Sea,  whose  terrible  power  they  knew. 
These  new  allies,  described  as  Jutes,  from  the 
peninsula  of  Jutland,  included  in  the  modern  Den- 
mark, landed  in  449  A.  D.  on  the  island  of  Thanet, 
on  the  northeast  corner  of  the  modern  county  of 
Kent.  They  are  said  to  have  been  under  the  com- 
mand of  two  chieftains,  Hengest  or  Hengist,  and 
Horsa.  The  destructive  critics,  of  course,  regard 
these  names  as  mythical.  Fortunately  this  does  not 
matter.  The  sea-rovers  certainly  came,  and  some 
leaders  they  must  have  had.  They  made  short  work 
of  the  Picts  and  Scots.    But  they  learned  the  good- 


16  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

ness  of  the  land  and  the  weakness  of  its  defenders, 
and  their  conquest  of  Britain  began. 

The  real  story  of  the  invasion  is  wholly  different 
from  the  popular  conception  of  hordes  of  warlike 
invaders  overrunning  a  country  inhabited  by  a 
defenseless  people.  The  Britons,  once  driven  to 
the  wall,  fought  with  the  fury  of  desperation.  It 
was  not  until  475  A.  D.,  twenty-six  years  after  their 
landing  at  Thanet,  that  the  capture  of  the  last 
British  fortress  in  Kent  gave  that  little  corner  of 
Britain  to  the  invaders.  The  conquest  of  this  por- 
tion illustrates  the  pertinacity  of  attack  and  stub- 
bornness of  resistance  which  characterized  the 
entire  conquest  of  the  island.  Very  striking,  also, 
is  the  lack  of  unity  and  of  national  spirit  among 
the  Britons  which  could  thus  allow  Kent  to  fight 
and  fall  alone.  A  similar  want  of  cooperation 
among  the  Britons  marked  almost  the  entire  Anglo- 
Saxon  conquest. 

But  the  invaders,  though  coming  tribe  by  tribe, 
evidently  descended  upon  selected  portions  of  the 
coast.  They  showed  their  kindred  and  a  certain 
racial  unity  by  respecting  one  another's  conquests. 
A  new  band  would  take  a  new  strip  of  coast  and 
conquer  up  to  the  boundary  of  what  their  predeces- 
sors had  already  mastered.  It  was  not  until  more 
than  one  hundred  years  after  the  conquest  began 
that  the  Jutes  and  West  Saxons  came  into  conflict 
among  the  hills  of  Surrey,  but  even  then  the  West 
Saxons  quickly  drew  away  to  pursue  their  con- 


NATIVE   ENGLISH  17 

quests  of  the  Britons  to  the  north  and  west. 
Though  the  conquerors  are  later  seen  contending 
over  the  spoil,  in  the  beginning  they  respected  and 
supported  one  another's  conquests,  by  which  means 
their  separate  attacks  had  the  effect  of  a  concerted 
invasion. 

From  the  Germanic  shores  between  the  Elbe  and 
the  Rhine  came  a  people — perhaps  portions  of  many 
kindred  tribes — known  to  the  Celtic  inhabitants  of 
the  islands  as  "Saxons,"  and  doubtless  so  called  by 
themselves,  since  they  perpetuated  the  title  in  the 
names  of  their  kingdoms,  as  of  Essex,  Sussex,  and 
Middlesex — names  which  still  designate  the  cor- 
responding counties  of  modern  England.  The 
Wessex  of  the  West  Saxons,  for  a  time  best  known 
of  all,  has  disappeared  from  the  modern  map.  It 
was  in  447,  two  years  after  the  conquest  of  Kent  by 
the  Jutes,  that  Saxon  invaders  swarmed  upon  the 
southern  shore  of  Britain.  In  the  year  519,  after 
three-quarters  of  a  century,  Cedric,  whose  kingdom 
of  Wessex  was  to  play  so  great  part  in  all  the  early 
history  of  England,  was  crowned  king  of  the  West 
Saxons.  But  in  the  very  next  year  the  West  Saxons 
suffered  a  serious  defeat  at  Mount  Badon,  which 
effectually  stopped  their  western  advance.  At  this 
period  Welsh  legends  place  the  exploits  of  the  famed 
King  Arthur,  who  may  well  have  been  a  historic 
personage.  Some  leader  certainly  rallied  his  race 
and  led  them  to  the  victory  which  checked  for 
thirty-two  years,  the  life-time  of  a  generation,  the 

2 — Sept.   21. 


18  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

advance  of  "the  heathen  from  the  Northern  Sea." 
Around  the  name  of  such  a  leader  the  minstrels 
would  soon  weave  thrilling  tales  of  romance,  and 
the  "Knights  of  the  Round  Table"  would  form  a 
convenient  setting  for  the  names  of  any  subordinate 
chieftains  whom  the  bards  might  delight  to  honor. 

Resuming  their  advance  in  the  year  552 — almost 
exactly  a  hundred  years  after  the  conquest  of  Britain 
began — the  West  Saxons  at  length  met  the  leagued 
forces  of  the  cities  of  Gloucester,  Circencester,  and 
Bath,  whom  they  defeated  in  the  great  battle  of 
Deorham,  in  577,  thus  gaining  commxand  of  the 
rich  valley  of  the  Severn,  and  greatly  reducing  the 
resisting  power  of  the  British  by  cutting  their 
dominions  in  two  at  that  river.  From  the  English 
Channel  to  Essex  and  Gloucester  on  the  north,  and 
from  Kent  on  the  east  to  the  border  of  Wales  on 
the  west,  a  great  parallelogram  of  southern  Britain 
had  become  practically  a  Saxon  conquest. 

So  prominent,  indeed,  were  the  Saxons  in  the 
early  conquest  of  Britain  that  their  name  was  given 
by  the  native  Celtic  peoples  to  all  the  invaders : 

"A  common  name  was  applied  by  the  Britons  to  all  the 
alien  immigration;  and,  though  each  tribe  had  its  own 
domestic  designation,  they  were,  and  still  are,  called 
Saxons  by  the  Celtic  aborigines  and  their  descendants." 
— Marsh,  "Lectures  on  the  English  Language,"  ist  series, 
lect.  ii,  p.  34. 

Thus  the  word  is  often  used  in  Scott's  poems  and 
romances.    Roderick  Dhu  exclaims : 


NATIVE  ENGLISH  19 

"Ay,  by  my  soul !    While  on  yon  plain 
The  Saxon  rears  one  shock  of  grain; 
While,  of  ten  thousand  herds,  there  strays 
But  one  along  yon  river's  maze — 
The  Gael,  of  plain  and  river  heir. 
Shall,  with  strong  hand,  redeem  his  share." 
— Scott,  "Lady  of  the  Lake,"  canto  v,  stanza  7. 

The  word  Saxon  has  literary  use  also  to  denote 
the  Anglo-Saxon  people  or  language  as  distinguished 
from  the  Norman, — a  usage  made  familiar  by  the 
same  author,  as  applied  to  "Cedric,  the  Saxon"  and 
his  race,  in  'Tvanhoe."  The  brevity  of  the  term 
Saxon  has  led  to  its  frequent  use  as  a  substitute  for 
Anglo-Saxon,  to  distinguish  the  people  and  the  lan- 
guage, as  we  read  of  "Saxon  words,"  "Saxon 
traits,"  "vigorous  Saxon  style." 

Why,  then,  was  not  Britain  named  Saxondom, 
Saxony,  or  Saxonland?  Because  another  tribe,  of 
whom  we  know  least,  did  most.  The  Angles  or 
Engles  came  probably  from  the  southern  portion 
of  the  peninsula  of  Jutland,  where  a  small  district 
still  called  Angeln  may  be  a  portion  of  the  territory 
they  once  occupied.  They  are  mentioned  as  a  dis- 
tinct people  by  Tacitus  and  Ptolemy.  The  historian 
Bede  (673-735  A.  D.),  who  was  one  of  that  people 
and  spent  his  life  among  them,  records  that  the 
whole  population  of  the  Angles  or  Engles  left  their 
homes  for  Britain,  and  that  the  land  they  had 
originally  occupied  remained  in  his  own  time  a 
dreary  waste.  Such  movements  of  an  entire  peo- 
ple were   frequent  about   the  breaking-up  of  the 


20  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

Roman  Empire,  as  strikingly  exemplified  in  the  vast 
migrations  of  the  Goths,  Huns,  and  Vandals.  The 
complete  removal  of  the  Angles  from  their  old 
homes  would  be  the  best  explanation  of  the  slight 
knowledge  left  us  of  their  life  and  history  on  the 
European  continent.  They  had  no  cities,  palaces, 
or  temples,  probably  no  buildings  of  brick  or  stone, 
no  statues  or  pictures,  libraries  or  monuments. 
Their  weapons  and  utensils,  their  jewelry,  and  the 
few  coins  such  a  people  would  use  in  that  age  of 
barter,  they  would  carry  with  them  in  their  ships. 
Within  a  generation  there  would  be  no  more  trace 
of  their  former  presence  than  the  migrating  swallow 
leaves  in  its  summer  home.  They  seem  to  have 
been  somewhat  late  in  entering  England.  In  the 
block  of  territory  projecting  out  almost  as  a  penin- 
sula into  the  North  Sea,  they  established  their  king- 
dom of  East  Anglia,  almost  equally  divided  into  the 
territories  of  Northfolk  and  Southfolk,  the  present 
counties  of  Norfolk  and  Suffolk  in  England. 
Wherever  we  turn  in  this  ancient  history  we  seem 
to  touch  the  present. 

As  rivers  and  inlets  were  the  natural  gateways 
for  the  sea-rovers,  a  portion  of  the  Engles  entered 
the  Firth  of  Forth,  while  another  force  entered  the 
Humber  in  519,  one  year  before  the  Saxons  met 
their  disastrous  defeat  at  Mount  Badon.  Thus, 
while  the  Saxons  were  checked  for  more  than  thirty 
years  in  the  south,  the  Engles  were  at  the  very 
opening  of  their  greater  conquests  in  the  north. 


NATIVE  ENGLISH  21 

From  the  Humber  they  conquered  northward  across 
Yorkshire,  where  the  important  city  of  York  had 
been  the  capital  of  the  Roman  dominion,  and  where 
Constantine  the  Great  had  been  proclaimed  emperor 
of  Rome.  Thus  they  laid  the  foundation  of  what 
became  their  great  kingdom  of  Northumbria,  of 
which  the  present  English  county  of  Northumber- 
land is  but  a  remnant.  The  later  predominance  of 
Northumbria  in  arts  and  arms  was  doubtless  the 
cause  of  bestowing  upon  all  the  conquered  portion 
of  the  island  the  name  which  Chaucer  spells  "Engle- 
lond,"  the  Engles'  land — England.  Others  of  the 
Engles  spread  along  the  course  of  the  Trent,  until 
the  westward  and  southward  advance  of  the  Engles 
met  the  territories  of  the  Saxons,  and  all  the  eastern, 
the  central,  and  most  of  the  southern  portion  of 
Britain  had  become  the  joint  possession  of  the  two 
invading  peoples,  while  the  kinship  of  the  Jutes  in 
Kent  seems  to  have  been  fully  recognized.  Though 
their  country  later  became  the  foremost  seat  of 
English  learning,  the  Engles  seem  at  this  period  to 
have  kept  no  records  of  their  conquests. 

Thirty-six  years  after  the  Saxons  had  cut  the 
British  dominions  in  two  at  the  Severn,  Ethelfrith 
of  Northumbria  divided  them  once  again,  in  613, 
by  the  capture  of  Chester,  near  the  northern  border 
of  Wales,  looking  out  upon  the  Irish  Sea.  This 
was  more  than  a  century  and  a  half  after  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  conquest  of  Britain  began.  This  marked  the 
end  of  the  national  existence  of  the  Britons.     The 


22  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

broken  remnants  of  their  territory  were  afterwards 
conquered  one  by  one. 

The  slowness  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  conquest  was  a 
momentous  fact.  The  stubborn  resistance  which 
they  met  maintained  the  racial  solidarity  of  the  in- 
vaders. Their  only  security  was  in  the  truth  of 
kindred  to  kindred.  Their  only  reinforcements  were 
from  their  kindred  beyond  the  sea.  The  long  con- 
test kept  them  warriors.  They  were  not  secure,  even 
in  the  lands  they  had  conquered,  except  by  the  power 
and  terror  of  their  sword.  Every  Engle  and  Saxon 
must  be  ever  and  always  a  warrior.  They  could 
depend  upon  no  foreign  alliances,  no  hireling  sol- 
diery, but  always  and  only  upon  their  own  strong 
arms.  What  they  had  taken  they  must  keep,  as 
they  had  won  it,  by  force  of  arms. 

It  seems  beyond  a  doubt  that  all  the  invaders  in 
the  early  years  of  the  conquest  waged  against  the 
Britons  exterminating  war.  Every  victory  was  a 
massacre.  Their  spirit  was  that  of  Joshua  when  he 
called  upon  the  sun  and  the  moon  to  stand  still, 
that  Israel  might  complete  the  slaughter  of  the 
fugitive  Amorites.  The  historian  Green  thus  de- 
scribes the  sequel  of  the  first  great  battle  of  invaders 
and  natives  in  Kent: 

"The  victory  of  Aylesford  (455)  did  more  than  give 
East  Kent  to  the  English;  it  struck  the  key-note  of  the 
whole  English  conquest  of  Britain.  The  massacre  which 
followed  the  battle  indicated  at  once  the  merciless  nature 
of  the  struggle  which  had  begun.  While  the  wealthier 
Kentish  landowners  fled  in  panic  over  the  sea,  the  poorer 


NATIVE  ENGLISH  23 

Britons  took  refuge  in  hill  and  forest  until  hunger  drove 
them  from  their  lurking-places  to  be  cut  down  or  enslaved 
by  their  conquerors.  It  was  in  vain  that  some  sought 
shelter  within  the  walls  of  their  churches;  for  the  rage 
of  the  English  seems  to  have  burnt  fiercest  against  the 
clergy.  The  priests  were  slain  at  the  altar,  the  churches 
fired,  the  peasants  driven  by  the  flames  to  fling  themselves 
on  a  ring  of  pitiless  steel." 

— Green,  "Short  History  of  the  English  People,"  p.  ii. 

The  invaders  were  utterly  heathen.  They  doubt- 
rless  looked  upon  the  religion  of  the  conquered  as 
the  worship  of  some  local  divinities  that  would  fight 
against  them,  and  they  thought  to  break  their  power 
by  destroying  their  shrines  and  their  priesthood. 
Cities  they  knew  not  what  to  do  with,  and  they 
hated  them  as  possible  strongholds  of  a  returning 
enemy.  Hence  they  desolated  them  with  fire,  leav- 
ing only  crumbling  walls  and  blackened  ruins. 
When  they  captured  Anderida,  in  491,  on  the  site 
of  the  modern  Pevensey,  their  own  chronicle  tells 
us,  "Aella  and  Cissa  beset  Anderida,  and  slew  all 
that  were  therein,  nor  was  there  afterwards  one 
Briton  left."  The  British  historian  Gildas  gives 
a  thrilling  account  of  the  cruel  destruction  of 
British  towns  and  the  slaughter  of  the  inhabitants 
by  the  "whelps  of  the  barbarian  lioness,"  and  the 
hopeless  overthrow,  as  he  deemed  it,  of  all  culture 
and  civilization.  In  the  farthest  northern  sweep 
of  the  West  Saxon  invasion,  in  an  ill-starred  ad- 
vance upon  Chester  in  584,  the  invaders  sacked  and 
burnt  the  Roman  station  at  Uriconium  or  Viri- 


24  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

conium,  "the  white  town  of  the  valley,"  leaving  but 
ranges  of  blackened  ruins,  sadly  described  by  a 
British  poet  as  "without  fire,  without  light,  without 
song,"  and  the  stillness  broken  only  by  the  eagle's 
scream.  After  their  great  victory  at  Deorham,  in 
577,  they  destroyed  Bath,  which  had  been  a  famed 
watering-place  under  the  Roman  occupation.  "The 
wild  forest  grew  in  the  colonnades  and  the  porches 
of  the  hot  springs,  over  the  Forum  and  the  public 
buildings  of  the  Romans."  An  English  poet  describes 
it  two  centuries  afterwards  in  a  pathetic  fragment 
called  "The  Ruined  Burg,"  said  by  Stopford  Brooke 
to  be  "the  only  English  poem  which  has  any  rela- 
tion to  the  Conquest,"  and  which  he  thus  translates : 

"Wondrous  is  this  wall  of  stone;  Weirds  (Fates)  have 
shattered  it ! 

Broken  are  the  burg-steads,  crumbled  down  the  giants' 
work! 

Fallen  are  the  roof-b«ams,  ruined  are  the  towers; 

All  undone  the  door-pierced  turrets;  frozen  dew  is  on 
their  plaster. 

Shorn  away  and  sunken  down  are  the  sheltering  battle- 
ments, 

Under-eaten  of  Old  Age !    Earth  is  holding  in  her  clutch 

These,  the  power-wielding  workers ;  all  forworn  and  all 
forlorn  in  death  are  they. 

Hard  is  the  grip  of  the  ground,  while  a  hundred  genera- 
tions 

Move  away  .... 

All  their  battle-bulwarks  bared  to  their  foundations  are ; 

Crumbled  is  the  castle  keep." 

Some  modern  historians,  who  are  unwilling  to 
admit  that  anything  remarkable  ever  happened — 


NATIVE   ENGLISH  25 

still  less  anything  dramatic — insist  that  there  could 
be  no  such  thing  as  "the  promiscuous  slaughter  of 
an  entire  people,"  and  that,  hence,  the  mass  of  the 
Britons  must  have  become  slaves  of  the  conquerors, 
and  in  process  of  time  have  become  amalgamated 
with  them.  But  we  need  not  fancy  that  the  "entire 
people"  would  calmly  wait  in  their  homes  for  the 
invaders  to  come  and  mow  them  down  or  enslave 
them.  A  few  massacres  like  that  of  Anderida,  with 
"not  one  Briton  left,"  would  be  enough  :  afterwards 
the  population  would  flee  far  before  the  invaders' 
advance.  So  we  find  that,  after  the  battle  of  Ayles- 
ford,  those  Britons  who  could  flee  crossed  the  Chan- 
nel to  Armorica,  in  northern  France,  in  such  num- 
bers that  in  the  year  461  they  had  a  church  and 
bishop  of  their  own  there,  and  by  the  middle  of  the 
sixth  century  so  many  refugees  had  come  that  they 
changed  the  name  of  the  country,  and  Armorica  had 
become  Brittany — the  "Briton's  land."  There  was 
doubtless  a  continual  retreat  toward  Wales  and 
Cornwall  on  the  west,  as  the  invaders  advanced  from 
the  east.  A  retiring  population  rapidly  dwindles. 
The  flower  of  the  young  men  who  might  found 
or  maintain  homes  fall  in  battle  against  the  invader, 
and  "the  voice  of  the  bridegroom  and  the  voice  of 
the  bride"  are  rarely  heard  in  the  land.  The  old 
and  the  feeble,  the  women  and  the  children,  sink 
under  the  hardships  of  flight  and  exile.  Sustenance 
fails,  as  agriculture  is  neglected  or  rendered  impos- 
sible.   In  America  we  understand  this  process  per- 


26  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

fectly.  There  was  no  "wholesale  slaughter"  of  the 
American  Indians,  but  how  many  of  them  were  left 
in  the  Atlantic  States  in  1776, — a  century  and  a 
half  after  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrims?  How  many 
ever  settled  down  as  "slaves"  among  the  white  men? 
How  much  mingling  was  there  of  Indian  blood  with 
that  of  their  conquerors?  When  Cooper,  in  1826, 
two  centuries  after  the  coming  of  the  white  men, 
wrote  "The  Last  of  the  Mohicans,"  the  American 
Indian  was  already,  on  the  east  of  the  Alleghenies, 
a  being  of  romance. 

The  testimony  of  language  favors  the  ancient 
story  of  ruthless  extermination  of  the  Britons.  But 
a  few  common  nouns  (according  to  some  authorities 
ten  or  a  dozen),  such  as  bannock,  bard,  basket, 
Druid,  mattock,  can  be  traced  direct  to  British 
sources.  With  these  are  to  be  placed  a  few  proper 
names,  as  Thames,  Kent,  and  Chester.  The  last  of 
these  is  very  interesting,  for  it  is  the  British  form 
of  the  Latin  word  castra,  "a  camp."  The  camp  was 
the  visible  embodiment  of  the  Roman  military 
power,  and  among  a  barbarous  people  the  camp  of 
their  conquerors  easily  became  a  proper  name,  just 
as  on  what  was  once  the  American  frontier  Fort 
Sill,  Fort  Smith,  Fort  Wayne,  etc.,  became  names 
of  towns  and  at  length  of  cities.  This  word  became 
also  a  familiar  termination  of  proper  names  in  the 
well-known  forms  -caster  and  -ccstcr,  as  in  Lan- 
caster,  'Lticester,  and  Worcester.  Another  Roman 
word,  adopted  by  the  Britons  and  taken  over  by 


NATIVE   ENGLISH  27 

the  conquerors,  was  colonia,  "colony,"  used  in  the 
form  -coin,  as  a  termination  of  certain  proper 
names,  as  h'mcoln.  Never,  perhaps,  within  historic 
times,  have  the  people  of  a  land  perished  leaving 
so  little  trace  of  their  presence  in  what  was  once 
their  home.  Their  impression  on  the  English  lan- 
guage is  far  less  than  that  of  the  American  Indians, 
who  have  given  us  Massachusetts,  Kennebec,  Mo- 
hawk, Minnehaha,  Minnesota,  Susquehanna,  Wyo- 
ming, and  a  host  of  other  proper  names,  besides 
tomahawk,  wigwam,  squaw,  papoose,  toboggan, 
tepee,  moccasin,  pemmican,  etc.  As  regards  the  his- 
tory of  the  English  language,  we  have  to  start 
afresh  with  the  Germanic  conquerors  of  Britain 
almost  as  if  the  island  had  never  before  been  oc- 
cupied by  human  beings. 

The  memory  of  some  of  their  divinities  is  pre- 
served in  the  names  they  have  left  us  of  the  days 
of  the  week — Tuesday,  the  day  of  Tiw,  the  dark 
god,  to  meet  whom  was  death ;  Wednesday,  the  day 
of  Woden,  their  chief  god,  the  god  of  war;  Thurs- 
day, the  day  of  Thor,  god  of  thunder  and  storm; 
Friday,  the  day  of  Frea,  Frigga,  or  Frigu,  the  god- 
dess of  peace  and  joy  and  fruitfulness.  Eastre  was 
the  goddess  of  dawn  or  spring,  in  whose  honor  an 
April  festival  was  celebrated,  the  name  of  which 
passed  over  to  the  Christian  festival  of  Easter. 
Behind  and  beyond  all  these  was  Wyrd,  the  death- 
goddess,  the  personification  of  Fate  or  Destiny, 
"whose  name  lingered  long  in  the  weird  of  northern 


28  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

superstition."  The  warrior  went  into  dubious  battle, 
the  mariner  embarked  on  the  stormy  sea  with  the 
cahn  utterance,  "All  must  be  as  Wyrd  wills."  But 
this  was  no  passive  submission  to  the  inevitable. 
They  did  not  wait  for  Destiny  to  come  and  find 
them.  They  would  reach  out  for  mighty  enter- 
prises, go  forth  upon  perilous  expeditions,  do  all 
that  skill  and  valor  could  do,  try  the  last  device, 
use  the  last  ounce  of  strength,  strike  the  last  blow, 
and  then — if  all  proved  vain — accept  defeat  or  death 
undismayed,  as  what  Wyrd,  governing  every  man's 
life,  had  ordained. 

"Their  whole  religion  was  a  grim  nature-worship 
of  seamen  and  warriors.  To  them  all  life  was  a 
warfare.  In  the  sad,  inclement  north,  amid  path- 
less forests,  bridgeless  rivers,  raging  and  treach- 
erous seas,  and  inhospitable  shores,  man  found 
himself  forced  to  contend  with  nature  as  with  a 
many-weaponed  beast  of  prey.  He  must  ever  face 
and  grapple  with  mighty  hostile  forces.  The  world 
was  full  of  hostile  men.  All  that  he  possessed, 
land,  home,  treasure,  life  itself,  he  must  be  ready 
at  any  moment  to  defend  with  his  sword.  There- 
fore the  one  thing  needful,  the  everlasting  duty,  is 
to  be  brave,  meet  fate  with  a  spirit  as  resolute, 
bring  human  conduct  up  to  the  loftiness  of  nature. 
Life  in  itself  has  no  value,  and  its  ideal  termination 
is  to  fall  gloriously  in  battle  against  the  elements 
or  human  foes." 

There  is  a  quality  in  their  heroism  that  differs 
from  the  modern  ideal  of  courage — a  joy  in  the 


NATIVE  ENGLISH  29 

peril  for  its  own  sake,  whether  of  ocean  or  of  battle. 
They  exultantly  accumulate  pictures  of  dread,  the 
gray  wolves  and  the  ravens,  and  the  "earn,"  the 
great  eagle,  hovering  about  the  advancing  host, 
eager  to  fatten  on  the  flesh  of  the  slain,  perhaps 
upon  their  own.  The  more  terrific  the  peril,  the 
higher  is  the  joy  of  the  dauntless  soul  that  can  dare 
its  utmost.  But  this  courage  was  more  than  that 
of  the  mere  adventurer  or  knight-errant.  They  had 
learned  the  solidarity  of  the  community.  The  wel- 
fare of  the  whole  tribe  or  clan  was  a  sacred  trust 
for  every  man  it  contained,  and  the  grandest  devo- 
tion was  for  the  victor  to  conquer  or  the  vanquished 
to  fall  in  defense  of  his  people.  With  this  went 
the  personal  loyalty  of  the  thegn  to  his  chieftain, 
whom  he  must  stand  by  against  whatever  odds  to 
the  death.  The  most  glorious  fate  was  to  fall  beside 
him.  For  desertion  of  chieftain  or  comrades  in 
battle  there  was  no  atonement. 

Amid  all  this  warlike  ferocity,  woman  was  held 
in  honor.  She  inherited  property  and  bequeathed  it. 
She  associated  with  men  at  their  feasts — the  wife 
of  the  chieftain  passing  among  the  warriors  to  offer 
the  flagon  of  mead  or  of  beer — and  was  received 
with  all  respect.  In  the  common  life  of  peace,  it 
is  true,  much  hard  drudgery  fell  to  her  lot,  and 
there  was  lack  of  the  delicacy  and  gentleness  that 
came  in  with  the  age  of  chivalry ;  but  protection  was 
assured  her  as  long  as  there  was  a  man  of  her 
kindred  to  stand  in  her  defense,  and  she  enjoyed 


30  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

that  high  consideration  which  the  Roman  historian 
Tacitus,  at  an  earher  day,  remarked  as  characteristic 
of  the  position  of  woman  among  the  Germanic  peo- 
ples. To  these  fierce  seamen  and  warriors  of  the 
north  home  life  was  sacred  and  dear. 

There  were  high  feasting  and  hard  drinking  in 
the  great  halls,  the  long  tables  loaded  with  flesh  of 
boar  and  deer  and  a  profusion  of  other  viands,  and 
with  great  cups  or  bowls  of  ale  or  mead.  Yet  we 
are  not  to  think  of  these  feasts  as  mere  gluttonous 
or  drunken  carousals.  There  must  have  been  some 
degree  of  temperance,  for  the  bards  sang  their  lays 
of  heroic  deeds,  and  were  listened  to  and  applauded, 
and  many  of  the  songs  that  have  been  preserved  are 
of  high  poetic  merit.  Often  the  harp  was  passed 
from  hand  to  hand,  each  guest  in  turn  singing  his 
song.  Especially  the  stranger  was  given  an  oppor- 
tunity to  ingratiate  himself  with  his  hosts  by  some 
song  of  his  own.  Then  we  must  remember  that 
these  feasts  were  only  in  the  intervals  of  long 
sea-voyages,  or  of  tedious  and  toilsome  marches, 
encampments,  or  battles,  so  that  hardship  was  a 
constant  check  upon  indulgence,  not  permitting  it, 
like  the  continual  revels  of  the  aristocracy  of  Rome 
in  her  luxurious  days,  to  undermine  the  stamina 
of  the  race. 

They  were  barbarians  rather  than  savages,  and 
their  rude  barbaric  life  was  pervaded  by  much  that 
was  beautiful  and  grand.  Brooches,  rings,  amulets, 
neck-pendants,    sword-belts,   cloak- fasteners,   often 


NATIVE  ENGLISH  31 

of  exquisite  form,  studded  with  rough  gems  and 
inlaid  with  enamel,  bronze  boar-crests  on  the  hel- 
mets of  the  warriors,  shields  decorated  with  orna- 
mental designs,  show  a  high  grade  of  industrial  art. 
Kings  and  chiefs  are  spoken  of  as  "bracelet-givers." 
The  sword  was  fashioned  with  especial  skill,  as  the 
warrior's  supreme  reliance;  coats  of  "ring-mail," 
made  of  steel  rings  deftly  interwoven,  were  com- 
mon, and  "rattled  upon  the  warriors  as  they 
walked."  The  smith  was  held  in  high  honor,  and 
Weland,  the  celestial  armorer,  held  a  place  among 
their  gods.  As  for  architecture,  they  had  practically 
none  worthy  of  the  name,  their  few  buildings  of 
stone  being  of  the  rudest  construction;  for  the  most 
part  the  plain  wooden  building  met  all  their  desires 
and  needs.  Their  pottery,  too,  was  rude  and  in- 
ferior. Some  knowledge  of  agriculture  they  evi- 
dently brought  with  them,  and  they  speedily  became 
proficient  in  the  cultivation  of  the  soil. 

Each  portion  of  Britain  mastered  by  hard  fight- 
ing became  the  country  of  the  conquerors.  They 
had  not  come  merely  to  plunder,  and  then  to  sail 
away  to  their  old  bleak  and  barren  lands.  They 
had  come  as  home-seekers,  sword  in  hand.  They 
did  not  desire  to  share  the  land  with  the  Britons. 
They  wanted  it  all,  and  they  wanted  it  for  a  civiliza- 
tion of  their  own.  That  unbendable,  non-compliant, 
infusible  something  which  it  is  now  common  to  call 
the  "insularity"  of  Englishmen  is  a  quality  which 
their  ancestors  seem  to  have  brought  with  them 


32  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

across  the  North  Sea.  This  appears  with  comic 
touch  in  the  name  they  soon  gave  to  the  earlier  in- 
habitants of  the  land.  No  sooner  were  they  them- 
selves established  in  possession  than  they  regarded 
themselves  as  the  real  people,  and  they  called  the 
native  Britons  "Welisc,"  "foreigners" — whence  the 
name  still  applied  to  the  Welsh  of  our  own  day. 
The  country  the  Britons  still  retained  became  "the 
foreigners'  land" — North  Wales  and  West  Wales. 
Their  conquest  was  more  than  an  invasion;  it  was 
rather  an  armed  migration.  In  place  of  the  Roman 
city,  which  they  destroyed,  they  set  up  the  Germanic 
town,  which  they  knew  how  to  build,  to  inhabit,  and 
to  defend. 

Once  established  in  their  conquests,  the  con- 
querors fought  many  a  fierce  battle  with  one  an- 
other— not  for  dispossession  but  for  supremacy,  the 
*Werlordship"  of  one  king  or  kingdom  over  one 
or  more  of  the  others.  Strangely  enough,  these 
tribal  wars  opened  the  way  for  Christianity.  In 
their  contests  against  one  another,  the  Engles  and 
the  Saxons  did  not  wage  exterminating  war  such 
as  they  had  carried  on  against  the  Britons.  The 
captives,  instead  of  being  slain,  were  sold  into 
slavery,  and  by  this  means  English  slaves  appeared 
in  many  markets  of  Europe.  Very  thrilling  is  the 
story  of  how  the  white  skin,  fair  hair,  and  blue  eyes 
of  some  of  these  Anglian  captives,  exposed  for  sale 
in  Rome,  attracted  the  attention  of  a  young  deacon, 
who  called  them  "not  'Angles,  but  angels,"  and  who, 


NATIVE  ENGLISH  33 

when  he  became  pope,  to  be  known  in  history  as 
Gregory  the  Great,  undertook  to  Christianize  the 
people  whose  captives  had  so  impressed  him  at  an 
earlier  day.  ThrilHng  also  the  story  how  Augus- 
tine and  his  band  of  missionaries  landed  in  597 
on  the  Isle  of  Thanet,  where  the  original  force  of 
Jutes  had  landed  in  449,  almost  a  century  and  a 
half  before;  how  Ethelbert,  King  of  Kent,  who  had 
now  obtained  the  overlordship  of  England,  held 
his  court  in  the  open  air,  listened  attentively  to  the 
stranger's  discourse,  and  within  a  year  accepted  the 
Christian  faith  and  was  baptized,  his  adhesion  secur- 
ing that  of  the  nobles  and  the  leaders  of  the  peo- 
ple, until  gradually  Christianity  spread  northward 
through  his  dominions.  It  was  taken  for  granted 
that  the  religion  of  the  realm  should  be  determined 
by  the  king,  and  this  principle  long  subsisted  in 
English  history.  It  is  true  that  missionaries  from 
Scotland  and  Ireland  had  already  done  much,  and 
afterwards  did  much,  to  win  Anglo-Saxons  to  the 
Christian  faith;  but  the  general  acceptance  of  Chris- 
tianity throughout  the  realm  is  to  be  traced  to  the 
mission  of  Augustine. 

Christianity  proved  a  marvelous  gift.  All  the- 
ology apart,  it  opened  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  islanders 
the  continent  of  Europe  and  all  the  centuries 
of  the  past.  It  gave  them  the  thrilling  narratives  of 
the  Old  Testament  and  the  sweet  and  tender  story 
and  maxims  of  the  Gospels.  It  brought  to  them 
the  eloquence  of  Cicero,  and  the  poetry  of  Vergil, 


34  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

and,  through  the  Latin,  all  that  the  world  then  knew 
of  Homer,  Aristotle,  and  Plato,  and  of  all  the  great 
poets  and  historians  and  sages  of  Greece.  It  brought 
unity  of  thought,  and,  in  time,  of  organization. 
Across  the  frontiers  of  the  warring  kingdoms  that 
divided  England  reached  one  thought  and  one  reli- 
gion that  looked  to  one  supreme  God,  to  whom  all 
men  and  all  nations  were  alike  responsible. 

In  place  of  the  blind  IVyrd,  "Fate,"  it  gave  the 
Will  of  an  almighty,  all- wise,  and  merciful  Father 
whose  ordaining  was  indeed  irresistible  for  every 
nation  and  every  life,  but  was  according  to  a  divine 
plan  and  purpose  of  good  to  all  true  souls  in  this 
life  and  in  the  life  beyond.  Even  by  the  penances 
of  the  church  these  rude  barbarians  were  taught  the 
consciousness  of  sin.  Murder  and  robbery  and  other 
crimes  were  no  longer  mere  disorders  that  could  be 
atoned  for  by  a  pecuniary  fine,  but  reached  within 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  Great  Dispenser,  who  held 
the  evil-doer  responsible  beyond  all  human  censure 
or  penalty.  Such  result  appears  strikingly  in  the 
poems  of  the  great  Northumbrian  poet,  Cynewulf. 
In  his  youth  a  gay,  roistering  minstrel  at  the  courts 
of  the  nobles,  he  came,  as  he  himself  thrillingly 
tells,  under  a  "conviction  of  sin,"  and,  after  long 
oppression  of  conscience,  to  a  sense  of  divine  for- 
giveness and  love,  all  of  which  is  as  thrillingly 
depicted  as  in  any  experience  ever  related  in  a 
Methodist  camp-meeting. 

Christianity    brought    an    outlook    beyond    the 


NATIVE  ENGLISH  35 

present  life.  Seamen  or  warriors  would  meet  dan- 
ger or  death  with  the  same  steadfast  courage  as  of 
old,  but  they  no  longer  came  to  a  blank  cessation 
of  being.  Thus  in  the  poem  called  "The  Battle  of 
Maldon,"  the  hero,  who  has  grandly  led  his  host 
against  the  invading  Vikings,  after  valiant  exploits 
has  his  right  arm  disabled  so  that  the  sword  falls 
to  the  ground,  and  never  thinking  of  flight,  he 
awaits  sure  death  at  the  hands  of  his  onrushing 
foes.  Then  he  utters  his  last  appeal  to  the  divine 
power : 

"To  thee  I  offer  thanks,  O  Ruler  of  the  peoples. 
For  all  the  delightfulness  I've  found  upon  the  earth. 
Now,  O  Lord  of  mercy,  utmost  need  have  I 
Grace  upon  my  spirit  that  thou  grant  me  here; 
So  my  soul  in  safety  may  soar  away  to  thee. 
Into  thine  own  keeping,  O  thou  prince  of  angels, 
Passing  hence  in  peacefulness.     Now  I  pray  of  thee 
That  the  harming  fiends  of  hell  may  not  hurt  my  soul." 

Christianity  brought  to  England  two  centuries  of 
Latin  learning.  Wihatever  we  may  now  think  of 
the  monastic  life,  in  that  day  the  monasteries  were 
the  sole  homes  and  centers  of  learning.  The  monk 
alone,  by  virtue  of  his  religious  consecration,  was 
exempt  from  the  call  to  bear  arms.  He  alone  could 
have  the  quiet  and  peace  that  made  study  possible. 
The  monks  still  held  the  primitive  idea  of  physical 
labor  joined  with  spiritual  devotion.  They  drained 
marshes,  reclaimed  fens,  and  cultivated  the  fields 
around   their  monasteries.      Then   in  many   quiet 


36  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

hours  they  gave  themselves  to  the  study  of  the 
Scriptures  and  of  ancient  literature,  and  to  copying 
precious  manuscripts  of  old.  To  Canterbury,  where 
Augustine  and  his  missionary  companions  had  first 
made  their  home,  came  Theodore  of  Tarsus  in 
Cilicia,  the  city  once  famed  as  the  home  of  the 
apostle  Paul;  consecrated  as  archbishop  in  668,  he 
brought  to  England  the  knowledge  and  study  of 
Greek  eight  centuries  before  the  Revival  of  Learning 
in  Europe,  and  made  Canterbury  the  educational 
center  of  southern  England.  But  the  chief  seats  of 
learning  were  in  the  Engle-land.  The  Monastery 
of  Whitby,  on  the  cliffs  overlooking  the  North  Sea, 
was  renowned.  At  Jarrow  in  Northumbria  Benedic 
Biscop  gathered  a  library,  bringing  books  collected 
in  repeated  visits  to  Rome.  There  Baeda  (673-735) , 
"The  Venerable  Bede,"  led  his  long,  peaceful  life, 
having  under  his  instruction  six  hundred  students 
at  a  time,  and  dictating  works  of  priceless  value, 
among  them  the  first  historical  work  of  the  English 
people,  his  "Ecclesiastical  History  of  England," 
written  in  Latin,  and  a  translation  of  the  Gospel  of 
John  into  the  Anglo-Saxon,  or  English,  tongue. 
Greek,  brought  from  Canterbury,  was  known  and 
studied  at  Jarrow  in  his  day.  At  York  Alcuin  be- 
came a  master  of  scholarship  and  won  such  distinc- 
tion as  a  teacher  that  he  was  invited  to  the  court 
of  Charlemagne  in  792,  to  carry  out  the  great 
emperor's  scheme  of  establishing  education  in  his 
dominions.     Thus  England,  in  that  early  day,  be- 


NATIVE   ENGLISH  37 

came  a  source  of  instruction  to  continental  Europe. 
The  two  centuries  that  followed  the  coming  of 
Christianity  were  full  of  progress  and  of  hope. 

Then  burst  upon  England  the  storm  of  the  Danish 
invasion.  The  North  Sea  opened  its  ports  again. 
Pirate  galleys  came  in  swarms  to  the  shores  of 
England,  as  three  centuries  before  they  had  come 
to  the  shores  of  Britain,  now  bringing  hordes  from 
Denmark,  Sweden,  and  Norway,  all  indiscriminately 
called  Danes.  In  794,  just  after  Alcuin  had  gone 
as  instructor  to  the  court  of  Charlemagne,  a  pirate 
band  plundered  the  monastery  of  Jarrow,  where 
Bede  had  spent  his  peaceful  scholarly  life,  and  soon 
the  learning  of  Northumbria  was  swept  away. 

"To  men  of  that  day  it  must  have  seemed  as  though 

the    world   had   gone    back   three   hundred   years 

There  was  the  same  wild  panic  as  the  black  boats  of  the 
invaders  struck  inland  along  the  river-reaches,  or  moored 
round  the  river  isles,  the  same  sights  of  horror,  firing  of 
homesteads,  slaughter  of  men,  women  driven  off  to  slavery 
or  shame,  children  tossed  on  pikes  or  sold  in  the  market- 
place, as  when  the  English  themselves  had  attacked 
Britain.  Christian  priests  were  again  slain  at  the  altar 
by  Worshipers  of  Woden;  letters,  arts,  religion,  govern- 
ment disappeared  before  these  Northmen,  as  before  the 
Northmen  of  three  centuries  before." 
— Green,  "Short  History  of  the  English  People,"  vol.  I, 

bk.  I,  ch.  3. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  pirates  had  become  farmers, 
and  farmers  are  defenseless.  On  their  own  ground 
their  homes  are  scattered  far  from  each  other,  and 
most  of  their  property  is  perishable.     Their  cattle 


38  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

may  be  slaughtered  where  they  stand,  their  grain 
taken  or  carried  away,  their  houses,  barns,  and  ricks 
reduced  to  ashes  by  the  torch.  They  can  not  resist 
an  army  of  soldiery  except  by  organization,  and 
organization  was  the  one  thing  the  Anglo-Saxons 
lacked.  They  could  fight  and  die  bravely ;  they  could 
endure  with  the  famed  constancy  of  their  race ;  but 
no  kingdom  was  yet  ready  to  unite  with  another 
kingdom.  Their  contests  for  overlordship  they 
could  not  lay  aside,  even  in  the  presence  of  a  foreign 
foe,  and  within  each  realm  rivals  for  the  throne 
were  every  moment  ready  to  wage  fierce  warfare 
with  one  another.  Hence,  wherever  invaders  ap- 
peared, they  soon  gained  the  mastery,  until  all  the 
once  powerful  kingdom  of  Northumbria,  all  of  East 
Anglia,  and  all  of  Central  England  almost  to  Lon- 
don had  become  subject  to  the  Northmen,  the  entire 
territory  being  known  as  the  "Danelagh,"  or  "Dane- 
law," because  there  the  Danish  law  alone  prevailed. 
At  length  Alfred  the  Great  (849-900)  brought  the 
element  of  organization  which  assured  for  the  En- 
glish people  a  future.  King  of  Wessex  and  a  man 
of  eminent  personal  courage  and  warlike  prowess 
combined  with  the  power  of  organization  and  of 
holding  masses  of  men  together  and  moving  them 
with  masterful  strategy  for  attack  or  defense,  joined 
with  a  wonderful  constancy  and  patient  yet  deter- 
mined endurance,  he  set  to  work  to  save  his  own 
realm  from  subjection  by  the  Northmen.  He  made 
Wessex  the  bulwark  of  England,  first  buying  off  the 


NATIVE  ENGLISH  39 

invaders  to  secure  a  few  years'  respite;  then,  taken 
by  surprise  by  their  unexpected  renewal  of  attack, 
and  driven  to  a  stronghold  in  the  marshes  of  Athel- 
ney  where  "he  greatly  stood  at  bay,"  thence  issuing 
forth  and  suddenly  defeating  the  enemy  in  battle, 
until  he  drove  them  from  Wessex.  Finding  that 
their  incessant  inroads  would  ultimately  wear  out 
even  Saxon  resistance,  with  statesmanlike  enterprise 
he  devised  a  navy  of  ships  swifter  and  more  power- 
ful than  those  of  the  pirates,  to  guard  the  shores  of 
England  against  reinforcement  of  the  invaders.  His 
was  the  thought  that  the  poet  Campbell  long  after- 
wards expressed: 

"Britannia  needs  no  bulwarks, 
No  towers  strong  and  steep; 
Her  fortress  is  the  mountain  wave. 
Her  home  is  on  the  deep." 

Finally,  as  the  best  expedient  to  secure  rest  for 
the  territory  he  had  rescued,  he  made  the  Peace  of 
Wedmore,  leaving  the  Danes  in  possession  of  all  the 
"Danelaw,"  while  shutting  them  out  of  Wessex. 
With  the  soldiery  he  had  trained  in  Wessex  and 
the  fleet  that  swept  the  sea,  he  held  the  Danes  to 
the  conquests  they  had  already  achieved,  while  he 
devoted  himself  to  the  task  of  restoring  the  de- 
fensive power  of  his  realm,  advancing  its  civiliza- 
tion, and  building  up  again  the  learning  that  had 
been  destroyed.  This  last  was  the  hardest  task  of 
all :  as  he  pathetically  remarked,  "When  I  began  to 
reign,  I  can  not  remember  one  priest  south  of  the 


40  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

Thames  who  could  render  his  service-book  into 
English."  But  by  precept  and  example  he  began  the 
movement  which  later  deepened  and  expanded  into 
the  rich  product  of  English  literature.  His  warlike 
fame  made  his  scholarly  devotion  gleam  like  a  star 
across  the  centuries. 

The  Danish  invasion  and  occupation  had  the 
effect  not  of  dismaying  but  of  uniting  England. 
The  warring  Anglo-Saxons  laid  aside  their  hos- 
tilities, massed  themselves  under  one  government, 
settled  down  with  the  solid  resisting  power  of  their 
race  around  the  territory  the  invaders  had  seized, 
and  under  Alfred's  successors  began,  in  910,  the 
reconquest  of  the  Danelaw.  By  954  the  subjuga- 
tion was  completed,  and  the  Northmen  melted  into 
the  mass  of  Englishinen,  the  effect  of  their  intrusion 
being  marked  only  by  the  number  of  Danish  words* 
which  have  become  an  indistinguishable  part  of 
English  speech.  Though  at  a  later  time  Danish 
bands  ravaged  parts  of  England;  though  the  vigor- 
ous Danish  conqueror  Cnut  (Canute)  seated  him- 
self on  the  English  throne,  and  aspired  to  make 
England  the  basis  of  a  great  Danish  empire;  though 
he  was  able  to  transmit  his  power  to  his  sons  Harold 
and  Harthacnut,  so  that  England  was  for  a  quarter 
of  a  century  (1016-1042)  under  the  rule  of  Danish 
kings,  these  events  amounted  to  no  more  than  in- 
cursions of  robbers  and  changes  of  dynasty — the 


*  Such  words  as  awe,  call,  crave,  fellow,  get,  hit,  husband,  knife,  leg, 
loft,  loose,  low,  odd,  root,  same,  scant,  skint,  take,  thrall,  want,  wrong, 
and  a  multitude  of  others. 


NATIVE   ENGLISH  41 

breaking  of  stormy  waves  upon  the  rocks,  leaving 
the  shore-Hne  of  racial  and  national  integrity  un- 
changed. Cnut  was  able  to  govern  England  only 
because  he  dismissed  his  Danish  troops,  gave  up  his 
barbaric  ferocity,  accepted  the  English  civilization, 
religion,  and  law,  and  made  himself,  to  all  intents 
and  purposes,  an  English  king. 

Through  all,  England  held  its  own.  England  was 
England  still,  and,  after  twenty-five  years  of  Danish 
rule,  the  line  of  Alfred  returned  and  was  welcomed 
to  the  throne  in  1041,  under  a  weak  but  lineal 
descendant,  whom  his  people  remembered  chiefly 
for  his  piety,  by  the  name  of  "Edward  the  Con- 
fessor." He  became  king,  not  of  Wessex  or 
Northumberland,  not  of  Kent  or  Mercia,  but  of 
England.  As  such  he  reigned  for  twenty-five  years, 
until  his  death  in  the  very  year  of  the  Norman 
Conquest. 

Through  such  a  history  as  this  was  evolved  that 
Anglo-Saxon  language  which  has  become  the  basis 
of  English  speech. 


II 

ANGLO-SAXON  ACHIEVEMENT 


II 

ANGLO-SAXON  ACHIEVEMENT 

The  clearest  and  most  vigorous  English  speech 
of  the  twentieth  century  has  its  source  in  the  lan- 
guage of  the  peoples  who  crossed  the  North  Sea 
from  the  continent  of  Europe,  conquered  Britain 
and  made  it  England  fifteen  hundred  years  ago. 
Through  all  wars  and  changes  the  language  of  those 
ancient  conquerors — which  has  received  the  book- 
name  of  Anglo-Saxon — has  stubbornly  held  its  own, 
so  that  at  present  the  proportion  of  Anglo-Saxon 
in  modern  English,  exclusive  of  scientific  and  tech- 
nical terms,  is  about  five-eighths;  in  the  vocabulary 
of  conversation,  four-fifths. 

Modern  English  has  borrowed  freely  from  Latin, 
French,  German,  and  every  other  tongue  known 
among  men,  but  the  children  of  the  English-speaking 
races  all  start  in  life  with  the  Anglo-Saxon.  The 
children  of  the  scholar,  the  author,  the  statesman, 
all  bring  into  his  home  and  to  his  table  that  simple, 
ancient  speech ;  they  regard  our  abstract  terms  and 
elegant  synonyms  from  many  lands  as  "grown-up 
language,"  which  they  can  not  be  expected  to  speak 
and  will  not  if  they  can  help  it,  and  which  they  do 
not  even  understand  until  they  have  translated  it 
into  the  familiar  homespun  of  the  primeval  English. 
The  charm  and  vividness  that  mark  the  conversa- 

45 


46  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

tion  of  cultured  English-speaking  women  are  largely- 
due  to  their  constant  use  of  those  terse,  simple, 
monosyllabic  or  dissyllabic  words  of  the  ancient 
speech,  with  which  they  deal  in  swift,  sure  utterance, 
ever  bringing  the  most  recondite  matters  into  touch 
with  the  fireside  and  the  home  and  the  whole  range 
of  common  human  life.  On  the  sea,  in  the  camp, 
on  the  battle-field,  in  the  forest  or  the  mountains, 
in  all  adventure,  stress  and  strain,  in  all  sudden 
downright  decision,  and  in  times  of  deepest  and 
most  tender  emotion,  these  simple,  old-time  words 
are  the  ones  that  spring  unbidden  to  the  lips  of 
English-speaking  men. 

Anglo-Saxon  is  the  bed-rock  of  the  English  lan- 
guage. In  the  present  structure,  tower,  battlement 
and  turret  have  been  fashioned  according  to  the 
architecture  of  many  lands,  but  all  rest  secure  on 
that  original  and  imperishable  foundation.  In  the 
fabric  of  English  as  it  exists  to-day,  borrowed  por- 
tions may  be  likened  to  embroidery,  often  very 
beautiful,  and  wrought  into  elegant  patterns,  while 
the  substantial  original  canvas  that  gives  body  to 
the  whole  and  holds  it  in  unity  is  the  Anglo-Saxon. 

Reviewing  their  history  from  their  early  invasion 
as  the  Roman  Empire  fell  to  the  time  when  they 
themselves  were  subdued  in  the  Norman  Conquest, 
many  are  ready  to  ask.  What  had  the  Anglo-Saxons 
done  in  six  hundred  years  ?  They  had  no  architec- 
ture, no  art  worthy  of  especial  mention,  and  but  a 
limited  literature,  which  the  world  now  cares  for 


ANGLO-SAXON  ACHIEVEMENT         47 

only  as  it  harks  back  from  later  glories  to  those 
far  originals.  The  English  still  remained  a  rude 
agricultural  and  sea-faring  people.  By  all  their 
fierce  and  resolute  conquest  of  England,  what,  it 
may  be  asked,  had  they  accomplished  after  all? 

For  one  thing,  they  had  lived.  They  had  held 
the  island,  once  conquered,  in  firm  possession.  What 
the  Britons  had  not  been  able  to  do  against  them, 
they  had  done  against  all  comers.  They  had  asked 
no  pirate  hordes  to  defend  them  against  Picts  and 
Scots;  but  when  new  hosts  of  North-Sea  pirates 
had  descended  upon  England,  those  Anglo-Saxon 
Englishmen  had  worn  out,  by  their  enduring  valor 
on  land  and  sea,  the  persistent  ferocity  of  Danes 
and  Northmen,  till,  at  length,  they  had  shut  them 
in,  subdued  them  on  the  very  soil  they  had  con- 
quered, and  finally  absorbed  them  into  the  mass  of 
the  English  people,  making  the  valor  and  hardihood 
of  the  barbarian  hosts  elements  of  the  strength  of 
that  wonderful  fusion  of  races  whose  power  and 
name  and  speech  have  become  proudly  known 
around  the  world. 

They  had  evolved  a  new  people,  so  distinctive  in 
character  as  to  be  called  the  "English  race." 
Through  the  darkest  periods  of  their  early  history 
shone  out  the  qualities  that  have  everywhere  marked 
their  existence  and  their  advance — steady,  resolute, 
enduring,  often  stubborn;  practical,  often  unduly 
devoted  to  the  concrete  and  the  commonplace; 
tenacious  of  old,  established  facts,  opinions,  cus- 


48  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

toms,  and  associations,  building  any  new  advance 
only  upon  advances  already  made ;  home-loving,  with 
a  deep  tenderness  under  a  rugged  exterior;  with 
emotion  that  does  not  effervesce,  but  burns  with  a 
white  heat  under  a  cold  demeanor,  expressing  itself 
not  in  words  but  in  deeds;  capable  of  standing 
calmly  on  the  sinking  deck,  passing  the  word, 
"Women  and  children  first,"  till  all  the  weak  and 
helpless  have  been  saved;  following  the  call  of  faith, 
loyalty,  and  duty,  not  merely  into  the  face  but  into 
the  very  fact  of  death;  ready  to  die  for  kindred  or 
country  with  a  still  devotion  that  scarcely  knows 
how  to  speak  of  love  or  patriotism,  for  which  it  is 
giving  its  all;  able  to  blunder  and  fail,  to  be  de- 
feated, conquered,  killed — ^but  never  dismayed,  to 
be  stubbornly  resolute  in  retreating  and  never  so 
dangerous  as  after  a  defeat.  The  maxim  of  their 
far-off  sires  ever  pervaded  their  resolute  ranks: 

"The  mind  must  be  the  firmer,  the  heart  must  be  the  keener, 
The  mood  must  be  the  bolder,  as  our  might  lesseneth." 

They  had  developed  the  wonderful  resiliency  that 
has  ever  since  marked  their  race,  that,  after  what- 
ever repulse  or  defeat,  when  opportunity  called 
anew,  in  what  might  seem  the  most  unpropitious 
hour,  it  would  find  them  ready — the  only  promise 
or  omen  needed  being  that  they  themselves  were 
there.  From  their  centuries  of  battle,  they  could 
not  help  being  a  martial  people,  avoiding  when  pos- 
sible, as  practical  men,  the  waste  and  destruction  of 


ANGLO-SAXON  ACHIEVEMENT         49 

war,  yet  always  ready  when  necessary  to  respond 
to  its  call.  Full  of  contrasts,  but  always  sturdy, 
vigorous  and  mighty,  the  English  race  had  come 
into  being. 

That  race  has  the  inexplicable  quality,  so  highly 
prized  in  certain  animal  stocks,  of  "breeding  true 
to  type."  The  qualities  of  that  type  have  come 
down  unchanged  through  the  centuries  and  have 
gone  with  the  race  around  the  world.  The  descen- 
dants of  the  English  in  Canada  and  the  United 
States,  in  New  Zealand  and  in  Australia,  are  typical 
still.  The  Saxon  king,  Alfred  the  Great,  was 
typically  English,  and  to  Americans  he  seems 
typically  American,  too.  Tremendous  in  battle, 
when  that  was  necessary,  wise  and  shrewd  in 
strategy,  broad  and  statesmanlike  in  plans,  seeing 
the  need,  when  he  had  stopped  the  advance  of  the 
Danes  already  in  England,  to  meet  the  new  swarms 
of  pirates  on  the  ocean  without  waiting  for  them 
to  set  foot  on  the  land,  building  around  the  "silver- 
coasted  isle"  the  floating  ramparts  that  guard  her 
still;  then,  in  the  moment  of  victory,  gladly  laying 
aside  the  sword  to  rebuild  the  civilization  that  war 
had  trampled  down  and,  amid  the  cares  of  state, 
giving  his  nights,  marked  off  by  measured  candles, 
to  translating  from  the  Latin  such  works  as  might 
best  serve  the  clergy  and  people  of  his  day, — we 
feel  at  home  with  him  at  once.  He  is  a  man  who 
might  live  to-day  on  English  ground.  In  his  retire- 
ment among  the  marshes  of  Aihelney,  he  reminds 

4 


50  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

Americans  of  our  own  Washington  in  the  grim 
winter  at  Valley  Forge,  that  way-station  on  the  road 
to  victory  at  Yorktown. 

Later  we  see  the  same  type  in  many  a  hero  of  the 
American  Civil  War,  doing  in  battle  all  that  man 
might  do,  then  laying  off  the  warrior  with  the 
uniform,  returning  with  delight  to  the  well-loved 
home  and  the  quiet  pursuits  of  peace,  becoming  a 
leader  in  business,  a  statesman  or  a  scholar,  happy 
to  do  some  greater  thing  than  to  "see  the  standard 
and  hear  the  sound  of  the  trumpet  and  the  alarm 
of  war." 

To  found  the  English  race  was  by  itself  a  mighty 
achievement.  Call  it  good  or  evil,  judge  it  as  friend 
or  foe,  we  must  pronounce  the  English  civilization 
evolved  from  the  Anglo-Saxon  conquest  one  of  the 
mightiest  facts  of  history.  That  civilization  has 
stretched  across  oceans,  continents  and  islands,  and 
starred  the  world  with  its  outposts;  and  the  speech 
of  those  rude  conquerors  has  become  the  substratum 
of  the  language  now  spoken  by  more  than  two 
hundred  millions  of  men. 

Those  early  Englishmen  had  conquered  not  only 
human  foes  but  hostile  nature.  They  had  mastered 
and  developed  the  land.  Of  course,  such  a  work  is 
progressive,  and  what  was  then  considered  a  highly 
improved  condition  would  be  deemed  very  rude 
to-day.  We  can  only  estimate  what  they  had  done 
by  comparing  the  land  as  they  had  made  it  with  the 
land  as  they  had  found  it. 


ANGLO-SAXON  ACHIEVEMENT         51 

"Scarcely  one-sixth  of  the  land  was  redeemed  [under 
the  Roman  occupation].  When  the  English  came,  the 
forest-land  opposed  their  advance  continually.  The  fen- 
lands  of  the  east  and  the  wide  marshes  of  Somerset  re- 
mained desolate.  The  great  woods  of  Andred,  of  Arden, 
of  Dean  and  of  many  others  were  still  huge  wastes  where 
only  the  outlaw  lived.  Wales  was  one  enormous  wood- 
land." 
— Stopford  A.    Brooke,   "English  Literature   from   the 

Beginning  to  the  Norman  Conquest,  ch.  i,  p.  ii. 

"Though  Britain  had  long  been  Roman,  her  distance 
from  the  seat  of  empire  left  her  less  Romanized  than  any 

other  province  of  the  west Its  natural  defenses 

threw  obstacles  in  its  invaders'  way.  In  the  forest  belts 
which  stretched  over  vast  spaces  of  country  they  found 
barriers  which  in  all  cases  checked  their  advance,  and  in 
some  cases  finally  stopped  it.  The  Kentishmen  and  the 
South  Saxons  were  brought  utterly  to  a  standstill  by  the 
Andredsweald.  The  East  Saxons  could  never  pierce  the 
woods  of  their  western  border.  The  Fens  proved  im- 
passable to  the  Northfolk  and  to  the  Southfolk  of  East- 
Anglia.  It  was  only  after  a  long  and  terrible  struggle 
that  the  West  Saxons  could  hew  their  way  through  the 
forests  which  sheltered  the  'Gwent'  of  the  southern  coast. 
Their  attempt  to  break  out  of  the  circle  of  woodland 
which  girt  in  the  downs  was  in  fact  fruitless  for  thirty 
years;  and  in  the  height  of  their  later  power  they  were 
thrown  back  from  the  forests  of  Cheshire. 

"It  is  only  by  realizing  in  this  way  the  physical  as  well 
as  the  moral  circumstances  of  Britain  that  we  can  under- 
stand the  character  of  its  earlier  conquest.  Field  by 
field,  town  by  town,  forest  by  forest,  the  land  was  won." 
— Green,  "History  of  the  English  People,"  vol.  i,  p.  42. 

The  Britain  which,  in  Julius  Caesar's  day,  was  in- 
habited by  scattered  tribes  of  savages  had  been 
developed  into  the  England  which  supported  a  settled 


52  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

and  industrious  population  of  1,500,000  at  the  ad- 
vent of  William  the  Conqueror,  according  to  esti- 
mates made  from  the  records  of  the  Domesday 
Book.  English  gold-work  and  embroidery  had  be- 
come famous  in  the  markets  of  Flanders  and  of 
France.  London  had  become  a  thriving  commercial 
city. 

"Men  of  the  Empire,  traders  of  Lower  Lorraine  and 
the  Rhineland,  men  of  Rouen,  traders  of  the  new  Norman 
duchy  of  the  Seine,  were  seen  in  the  streets  of  London. 
It  was  in  Eadgar's  day  (958-975),  indeed,  that  London 
rose  to  the  commercial  greatness  it  has  held  ever  since." 
— Green,  "History  of  the  English  People,"  vol.  i,  p.  127. 

As  v^e  read  of  the  fierce  resistance  of  the  Britons 
to  the  invaders  for  two  hundred  and  fifty  years,  of 
the  wars  of  the  various  Anglo-Saxon  kingdoms  one 
against  another,  of  the  wars  of  the  various  claimants 
to  the  throne  within  every  kingdom,  and  then  of 
the  disastrous  inroads  of  the  Danes,  we  wonder  that 
anything  was  left.  The  constant  mustering  of 
armies,  the  plundering,  slaying,  and  burning  from 
end  to  end  of  England,  make  it  seem  as  if  the  whole 
land  must  have  become  a  wilderness  and  its  people 
well-nigh  extinct.  Yet  tlirough  all  and  in  spite  of 
all,  the  English  people  grew  rich  and  great.  England 
was  a  far  more  desirable  conquest  for  the  Normans 
than  Britain  had  been  for  the  Angles  and  Saxons. 
Already  the  English  race  had  developed  that 
"practical  quality"  which  impels  them  to  make  what- 
ever land  they  occupy  habitable  and  productive,  and 


ANGLO-SAXON  ACHIEVEMENT         53 

which  has  made  them  the  foremost  colonizers  of 
the  world.  Wherever  the  Englishman  has  gone  as 
a  colonizer  he  has  gone  as  a  builder.  Spain  con- 
quered in  the  sixteenth  century  the  rich,  populous 
and  prosperous  empires  of  Mexico  and  Peru, 
stripped  off  and  carried  away  by  the  shipload  the 
gold,  silver,  and  gems  already  produced,  and  left 
the  mines  that  produced  them  to  sink  into  a  decay 
from  which  they  have  not  yet  recovered;  allowed 
the  noble  systems  of  irrigation  that  made  wide  dis- 
tricts fertile  to  fall  into  ruin,  though  the  very  ruins 
are  among  the  wonders  of  the  world;  wore  out  the 
native  people  by  brutal  slavery  until  now,  aside  from 
the  small  number  of  pure-blooded  descendants  of 
the  conquerors,  only  a  thin  population  of  half-breed 
peons  struggle  for  subsistence  where  once  proud 
empires  flourished.  A  century  later  English  colo- 
nists landed  on  the  then  desolate  shores  of  North 
America,  with  its  forbidding  climate  and  stubborn 
soil.  Forests  tenanted  by  wandering  savages 
stretched  before  them  farther  than  eye  could  reach 
or  foot  explore.  The  English  adventurers  founded 
towns  upon  the  shore,  hewed  down  the  forests, 
clearing  field  by  field  and  farm  by  farm,  toiled  and 
fought  their  way  ever  westward,  till  the  United 
States  and  Canada  span  the  continent  with  ever- 
increasing  prosperity  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  far 
Pacific.  They  have  done  for  North  America  what 
their  ancestors  did  for  Britain.  The  new  continent 
was  but  a  larger  island,   not  to  be  ravaged  and 


54  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

plundered,  but  to  be  improved,  cultivated,  peopled, 
all  subdued  to  the  use  of  man,  made  habitable  and 
self-supporting  and  enriched  by  the  profitable  trade 
of  all  the  world.  Men  of  all  nations  have  aided  in 
the  process,  but  they  have  been  dominated  by  the 
impulse  of  the  original  settlers.  The  shaping,  con- 
trolling power  has  been  that  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race,  coming  as  settlers,  cultivators,  builders  of 
homes  and  towns  and  cities,  to  make  the  earth  yield 
her  increase  for  the  welfare  of  humanity,  while  the 
abundance  of  the  seas  should  be  brought  in  to 
minister  to  ever-increasing  prosperity.  How  dif- 
ferent are  the  settlers  from  m.any  other  lands  whom 
we  see  to-day  in  the  immigrants  who  stay  in  the 
seaport  cities  where  they  first  set  foot, — those  who 
have  been  agricultural  laborers  at  home  herding  here 
in  forlorn  streets  and  alleys,  in  intolerable  tene- 
ments, in  garrets  and  cellars,  out  of  touch  with  the 
soil,  their  children  growing  up  incompetent  for  the 
simplest  work  of  farm  or  garden,  surprized  and 
almost  scared  if  any  chance  brings  them  to  see  the 
open  land  and  growing  things.  The  mastery  of  soil 
and  sea  for  the  subsistence  and  enrichment  of  a  life- 
time, of  generations,  by  toil  and  thrift,  is  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  system,  wrought  out  in  ancient  days  in  the 
hard-won  conquest  and  occupation  of  England. 

The  Anglo-Saxons  had  founded  a  nation.  Their 
once  scattered  tribes,  constantly  at  war  with  one 
another  for  centuries,  were  at  last  merged  into  one 
coherent  national  organization,  with  one  king,  whose 


ANGLO-SAXON  ACHIEVEMENT         55 

authority  was  accepted  from  the  Channel  to  the 
Tweed,  with  one  system  of  government  and  law, 
and  with  one  national  army  and  navy,  England 
had  taken  a  distinct  place  among  the  nations.  When 
Harold  was  expecting  the  Norman  invasion,  he 
hurried  with  an  army  to  the  coast  of  Yorkshire, 
where  he  met  and  defeated  an  invading  host  from 
Norway;  then  he  was  forced  to  hasten  back  with  his 
victorious  but  wearied  army  to  meet  the  Normans, 
who  had  already  landed  and  begun  their  advance. 
But  his  army,  through  both  campaigns,  was  the 
English  army,  and  his  battles  were  not  for  Northum- 
bria,  Essex,  Wessex,  Kent  or  JNIercia,  but  for 
England.  That  deep  unity  of  organization  and  of 
spirit  had  been  attained  which  has  made  the  name  of 
England  an  inspiring  and  controlling  watchword 
for  all  her  sons  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe  on 
land  or  sea,  as  when  Nelson,  centuries  after,  had 
only  to  repeat  that  one  commanding  name  in  his 
immortal  battle-signal,  "England  expects  every  man 
to  do  his  duty." 

The  Anglo-Saxons  had  built  an  absolutely  new 
system  of  civilisation,  government  and  law.  The 
shadow  of  the  defunct  Roman  Empire  still  lay  deep 
and  dark  over  all  the  realms  her  legions  had  once 
held  on  the  continent  of  Europe,  and  most  of  them 
have  not  wholly  escaped  it  to  this  hour.  But,  alone 
of  all  the  successors  of  the  Roman  Empire,  England 
did  not  inherit  from  Rome.  Goths.  Huns.  Vandals, 
Franks,  all  were  mastered  by  the  empire  they  over- 


56  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

threw.  In  France,  Italy,  and  Spain,  the  speech  of 
the  descendants  of  the  invaders  is  still  a  modified 
Latin.  All  kept  the  ideal  of  empire  and  emperor. 
As  soon  as  Charlemagne  had  established  his 
dominion,  he  was  crowned  in  Rome  itself  "Emperor 
of  the  West."  Germany  became  part  of  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire,  and  her  last  emperor  bore  the  name 
of  Kaiser, — "Caesar." 

"In  the  eyes  of  the  West  and  of  the  Church  in  the  West 
Charlemagne  and  his  successors,  who  were  crowned  by 
the  Pope,  were  regarded  as  the  successors  of  Augustus 
and  Antoninus,  as  the  true  temporal  heads  of  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire." 
— Baring-Gould,  "The  Story  of  Germany,"  ch.  x,  p.  65. 

Roman  imperialism  had  done  much  to  civilize  but 
much  also  to  degrade  the  world.  At  the  height  of 
the  Roman  supremacy  the  imperialistic  system  and 
polity  had  become  a  cancer  infecting  the  whole  body 
politic,  till  the  once  mighty  organism  could  not  even 
stand  alone,  but  went  down  like  a  house  of  cards 
before  the  onrush  of  undeveloped,  but  also  unspoiled, 
barbarians.  But  the  virus  of  the  malign  system 
pervaded  every  part  of  the  wreck,  so  that  out  of 
those  ruins  no  structure  could  be  built  that  would 
not  suffer  from  the  retained  evils  of  the  vanished 
despotism.  It  was  natural  for  Spain  to  yield  to  a 
Charles  V  or  a  Philip  II,  for  France  to  bow  to  a 
Richelieu  and  a  Louis  XIV,  since  in  them  they  were 
submitting  to  the  still  mighty  reminiscence  of  the 
Roman  Caesar.    The  ideal  of  the  continental  nations 


ANGLO-SAXON  ACHIEVEMENT         57 

was  still  that  of  subjugation  under  the  resistless 
hand  of  a  supreme  master. 

There  was  one  nation  of  the  western  world,  and 
but  one,  that  did  not  inherit  from  Rome  its  civiliza- 
tion, its  laws,  or  its  polity. 

"The  arrival  of  the  Saxons  prevented  this  island  from 
being  the  home  of  a  Romanesque  people  like  the  French 
or  Spanish." 
— Earle,  ^'Philology  of  the  English  Tongue,"  sect.  2,  p.  23. 

By  the  ferocity  of  their  early  conquests  they  had 
swept  from  the  soil  of  Britain  the  British  people 
who  had  learned  to  bow  under  the  Roman  yoke. 
They  had  destroyed  everything  of  Roman  occupa- 
tion that  was  destructible,  leaving  only  the  imper- 
ishable Roman  roads,  leading  to  the  fire-swept  ruins 
of  deserted  cities  and  villas.  The  English  race  had 
started  nationality  anew,  asking  no  example  and  no 
privilege  from  any  antiquity  other  than  its  own. 
Though  for  centuries  it  derived  its  philosophy,  its 
religion,  and  much  of  its  literature  from  early 
sources  through  the  Latin  speech,  England  took  all 
these  electively,  choosing  what  suited  the  English 
temper  and  consorted  with  English  judgment  and 
thought.  Though  Christianity  came  to  them  from 
Rome  and  the  English  were  members  of  the  Roman 
Church,  yet  the  Church  of  England,  even  before  the 
Reformation,  held  much  distinctive  independence, 
and  English  ecclesiastics  and  kings  resented  direct 
control  from  Rome.  The  one  ambition  of  the 
English  conquest,  effectually  achieved,  had  been  to 


^-> 


58  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

clear  the  ground  for  a  new  civilization  which  should 
be  all  their  own.  Their  persistent  determination  in 
the  centuries  following  had  been  to  keep  for  England 
all  that  was  essentially  English.  They  had  come  to 
have  a  passion  for  nationality.  Their  own  land, 
their  own  people,  their  own  customs  and  civilization, 
they  held  dear,  in  part  because  they  had  been  com- 
pelled to  fight  so  long  and  so  bitterly  for  them. 
Moored  alongside  the  continent  of  Europe,  separated 
only  by  the  North  Sea  and  the  narrow  but  stormy 
Channel,  England  lived  its  own  life,  thought  its  own 
thought,  developed  its  own  nationality. 

It  was  time  for  Roman  Imperialism  to  die.  The 
basis  of  Roman  society  in  the  decline  of  the  Republic 
and  under  the  Empire  was  slavery.  A  century 
before  Augustus  came  to  the  throne,  the  Gracchi 
had  complained  that  slave  labor  was  driving  freemen 
off  the  soil  of  Italy.  In  the  time  of  Claudius,  ac- 
cording to  Gibbon's  estimate,  "the  slaves  were  at 
least  equal  in  number  to  the  free  inhabitants  of  the 
Roman  world."  Farm  laborers  were  slaves,  me- 
chanics were  slaves,  household  servants  were  slaves, 
secretaries,  amanuenses,  and  clerks  were  slaves, 
often  far  superior  in  learning  and  culture  to  the 
masters  whose  chattels  they  were.  One  maxim  of 
Roman  law  sufficiently  reveals  their  status,  that  "the 
testimony  of  a  slave  could  be  received  only  under 
torture."  The  basis  of  society  among  the  people 
who  founded  England  was  the  freeman,  the  "free- 
necked  man,"  who  had  never  bowed  his  head  to  a 


ANGLO-SAXON  ACHIEVEMENT         59 

master.  Such  slavery  as  existed  among  them  was 
for  the  most  part  the  villenage  of  serfs  bound  to 
the  soil,  who  ultimately  rose  to  freedom  with  the 
advance  of  the  society  amid  which  they  lived. 

"Moral  causes  noiselessly  effaced  the  distinction  between 
master  and  slave Some  faint  traces  of  the  institu- 
tion of  villenage  were  detected  by  the  curious  so  late  as 
the  days  of  the  Stuarts,  nor  has  that  distinction  ever,  to 
this  hour,  been  abolished  by  statute." 
— Macaulay,  "History  of  England,"  vol.  I,  ch.  i,  p.  14. 

A  system  which  could  thus  noiselessly  fade  away 
could  not  have  been  very  extensive  or  very  deeply 
rooted.  Slavery  was  almost  a  negligible  incident  of 
early  English  civilization.*  Individual  freedom  was 
the  basis,  the  ideal,  of  that  civilization.  Hence  the 
honor  everywhere  accorded  to  labor  among  the 
English  people.  Scions  and  imitators  of  aristocracy 
there  have  always  been  to  scorn  it,  but  on  the  whole 
the  Englishman  has  always  been  proud  of  his 
capacity  to  do  strongly  whatever  human  hands  may 
do.  Notably  the  extension  of  the  English  race 
across  the  North  American  continent  has  been 
chiefly  due  to  the  sturdy  young  men  who  have 
started  out  from  home  in  every  generation,  each 
for  himself,  with  no  capital  but  his  hands  and  his 
brain,  each  trenchantly  described  as  "full  of  days' 
works,"  to  conquer  some  new  tract  of  wilderness. 
Such  a  society  of  freemen  can  do  what  no  agglom- 

*  This  fact  joins  with  other  historical  data  to  show  that  the  Britons 
were  swept  away  before  their  conquerors,  and  not  enslaved,  which  would 
have  loaded  the  new  nation  from  the  beginning  with  a  great  slave 
population. 


60  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

eration  of  masters  and  slaves  could  ever  accomplish. 
The  basis  of  Roman  government  under  the  Em- 
pire was  the  emperor's  absolute  will.  He  could  send 
a  message  to  any  citizen  in  Rome  or  in  the  provinces, 
however  eminent,  commanding  him  to  take  his  own 
life,  or  to  go  into  banishment  in  some  savage  wilder- 
ness or  on  some  desolate  island,  and  the  victim 
would  die  without  attempt  to  escape,  or  set  forth 
on  his  journey  into  exile  without  officer  or  guard. 

"The  empire  of  the  Romans  filled  the  world,  and  when 
that  empire  fell  into  the  hands  of  a  single  person,  the 
whole  world  became  a  safe  and  dreary  prison  for  his 
enemies.  The  slave  of  Imperial  despotism,  whether  he 
was  condemned  to  drag  his  gilded  chain  in  Rome  and  the 
Senate  or  to  wear  out  a  life  of  exile  on  the  barren  rock 
of  Seriphus,  or  the  frozen  banks  of  the  Danube,  expected 
his  fate  in  silent  despair.  To  resist  was  fatal,  and  it  was 
impossible  to  fly.  On  every  side  he  was  encompassed 
with  a  vast  extent  of  sea  and  land,  which  he  could  never 
hope  to  traverse  without  being  discovered,  seized,  and 
restored  to  his  irritated  master.  Beyond  the  frontiers  his 
anxious  view  could  discover  nothing  except  the  ocean, 
inhospitable  deserts,  hostile  tribes  of  barbarians,  of  fierce 
manners  and  unknown  language,  or  dependent  kings,  who 
would  gladly  purchase  the  emperor's  protection  by  the 
sacrifice  of  an  obnoxious  fugitive." 
— Gibbon,   "Decline  and  Fall  of   the  Roman  Empire," 

vol.  i,  ch.  3,  p.  99. 

To  this  must  be  added  the  constant  presence  of  a 
great  army  of  spies,  traveling  back  and  forth  on  all 
the  Roman  roads,  and  reporting  at  the  capital  all 
they  could  discover,  even  in  the  remotest  province, 
so  that  they  were  called  "the  eyes  of  the  emperor." 


ANGLO-SAXON  ACHIEVEMENT         61 

No  man,  however  high  or  humble  his  station,  could 
be  sure  that  any  act  or  word  of  his  life  might  not 
be  reported  with  sinister  aggravation  to  the  watching 
imperial  overlord. 

Despotism  such  as  this  Englishmen  never  knew 
and  have  never  imagined  as  a  possibility  of  exis- 
tence. "Conquest,"  says  Green,  "begat  the  king. 
It  seems  probable  that  the  English  had  hitherto 
known  nothing  of  kings  in  their  own  fatherland." 

"A  general  of  the  tribe  was  elected  on  occasions  of 
danger;  and,  if  the  danger  was  pressing  and  extensive, 
several  tribes  concurred  in  the  choice  of  the  same  general. 
The  bravest  warrior  was  named  to  lead  his  countrymen 
into  the  field,  by  his  example  rather  than  by  his  com- 
mands. But  this  power,  however  limited,  was  still  in- 
vidious. It  expired  with  the  war,  and  in  time  of  peace 
the  German  tribes  acknowledged  not  any  supreme  chief. 
(Csesar  de  Bell.  Gall,  vi,  23.)" 
— Gibbon,   "Decline   and   Fall   of  the   Roman  Empire," 

vol.  i,  ch.  9,  p.  265. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  conquerors  had,  moreover, 
brought  with  them  from  their  early  homes  freedom 
and  parliaments,  the  folkmotes,  or  people's  meet- 
ings, the  nntenageniote  or  meeting  of  wise  men, 
where  matters  affecting  the  community  were  decided 
by  the  voices  of  freemen — often  by  the  applauding 
clang  of  spear  on  shield  or  by  deep  groans  of  nega- 
tion which  no  chieftain  might  safely  disregard. 

"In  the  'great  meeting'  of  the  witenagemote,  or  assembly 
of  the  wise,  lay  the  rule  of  the  realm.  It  represented  the 
whole  English  people,  as  the  wisemoots  of  each  kingdom 
represented  the  separate  peoples  of  each;  and  its  powers 


62  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

were  as  supreme  in  the  wider  field  as  theirs  in  the  nar- 
rower. It  could  elect  or  depose  the  king.  To  it  belonged 
the  higher  justice,  the  imposition  of  taxes,  the  making  of 
laws,  the  conclusion  of  treaties,  the  control  of  wars,  the 
disposal  of  the  public  lands,  the  appointment  of  great 
officers  of  state." 

—Green,  "History  of  the  English  People,"  vol.  i,  ch.  4, 
p.  123. 

The  germ  of  the  present  English  constitution  was 
already  there.  Representative  government  was  em- 
bedded deep  in  the  life  of  the  people.  Thus,  after 
royalty  was  thoroughly  established  in  England,  the 
king  was  still  regarded  as  deriving  his  power  from 
the  people.  This  was  never  more  clearly  shown 
than  on  the  eve  of  the  Norman  conquest.  On  the 
death  of  Edward  the  Confessor,  the  direct  heir  to 
the  throne,  of  the  line  of  Alfred,  was  still  a  child, 
and  the  Witan  set  him  aside  because  he  was  still  a 
child,  and  elected  Harold  to  the  throne  because  he 
was  a  warrior  and  statesman  such  as  at  that  crisis 
the  nation  needed. 

This  right  did  not  lapse  at  the  Norman  Con- 
quest. Though  William  the  Conqueror  won  the 
mastery  of  England  by  the  sword,  he  was  glad  to 
receive  the  crown  by  the  gift  of  the  nation,  as 
offered  by  a  parliamentary  embassy,  and  confirmed 
in  his  coronation  at  Westminster  by  the  Archbishop 
of  York,  amid  shouts  of  "Yea!  Yea!"  from  his  new 
English  subjects.  After  the  right  had  been  over- 
looked during  a  century  and  a  half  of  Norman 
misgovernment,  King  John  was  sharply  reminded 


ANGLO-SAXON  ACHIEVEMENT         63 

of  it  when  the  embattled  barons  and  people  of 
England  exacted  his  assent  to  the  Great  Charter, 
under  peril,  as  he  and  they  well  knew,  of  the  for- 
feiture of  his  crown.  Magna  Carta  reaffirmed  the 
Anglo-Saxon  right,  and  made  it  the  indestructible 
basis  of  government  under  all  kings  of  the  Norman 
line.  At  Runnymede  a  deep  line  was  drawn  separat- 
ing forever  the  royalty  of  England  from  the  royalty 
of  every  other  European  nation.  There  the  break 
which  the  Anglo-Saxons  had  effected  from  Roman 
imperialism  was  made  perpetual  so  long  as  the 
English  constitution  endures. 

Courtiers  and  ecclesiastics  brought  in  later  the 
doctrine  of  the  "divine  right"  of  kings,  but  their 
theory  never  took  root  in  the  thought  of  the  people. 
Three  centuries  after  the  Norman  Conquest  Richard 
II  was  set  aside  and  Henry  IV  made  king  by  the 
action  of  Parliament.  The  Cromwellian  revolution 
was  but  the  assertion  of  the  same  right  of  Parlia- 
ment and  people,  through  the  violence  of  civil  war. 
The  revolution  of  1688  was  an  assertion  of  the 
ancient  right,  when  Parliament  deposed  James  II, 
under  the  legal  fiction  of  his  "abdication,"  and  not 
only  made  his  daughter  queen  but  made  her  husband 
king,  not  as  the  consort  of  Mary  but  in  his  own 
right,  proclaiming  "William  and  Mary  King  and 
Queen" ;  and  this  conditioned  upon  their  acceptance 
of  the  Declaration  and  Bill  of  Rights,  narrowly 
limiting  the  prerogatives  of  the  crown.  Through 
all  wars,  all  periods  of  civil  strife,  all  transient 


64  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

epochs  of  royal  tyranny,  this  principle  endured 
which  the  English  people  inherited  from  their 
Anglo-Saxon  sires,  that  the  royal  authority  was 
dependent  upon  the  people's  will.  It  was  the  same 
doctrine  asserted  by  Americans  in  their  Declaration 
of  Independence: 

"That  to  secure  these  rights  [to  life,  liberty,  and  the 
pursuit  of  happiness],  governments  are  instituted  among 
men,  deriving  their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the 
governed;  and  that  when  any  form  of  government  be- 
comes destructive  of  these  ends,  it  is  the  right  of  the 
people  to  alter  or  abolish  it,  and  to  institute  a  new- 
government,"  etc. 

Alore  truly  than  they  themselves  were  then  aware, 
the  Americans  of  1776  were  contending,  as  Edmund 
Burke  declared,  "not  for  the  rights  of  men  but  for 
the  rights  of  Englishmen."  These  principles  had 
been  so  long  imbedded  in  the  English  constitution 
that  the  descendants  of  Englishmen  "held  them  to 
be  self-evident."  It  was  because  they  were  not 
some  new  theory,  which  might  be  abandoned,  but 
the  reaffirmation  of  immemorial  rights  that  the 
English  colonists  on  American  soil  could  hold  to 
them  through  seven  long  years  of  war,  and  cherish 
them  afterwards  as  the  dearest  fruits  of  victory. 

It  would  be  idle  to  pretend  that  the  Anglo-Saxons 
enjoyed  perfect  liberty.  Their  system  of  govern- 
ment was  very  crude,  but  it  was  on  the  sound  basis 
of  popular  rights.  It  embodied  a  true  ideal  capable 
of  expanding  into  the  popular  liberty  which  English- 


ANGLO-SAXON  ACHIEVEMENT         65 

men  and  Americans  now  enjoy.  The  very  thought 
of  Lincoln  at  Gettysburg,  "government  of  the  peo- 
ple, by  the  people  and  for  the  people,"  was  but  the 
underlying  principle  of  the  earliest  English  civiliza- 
tion, enriched,  deepened,  but  not  superseded,  by  the 
study  and  experience  of  centuries.  The  foundations 
of  English  and  American  liberty  were  laid  in  the 
Anglo-Saxon  day.  It  was  much  that  humanity 
should  somewhere  begin  an  unsubjugated  life. 
Britain  was  the  one  province  of  the  Roman  world 
where  this  was  possible,  and  it  was  possible  there 
because  every  vestige  of  Roman  dominion  had  been 
swept  away  with  fire  and  sword,  and  the  island 
began  its  new  life  not  as  Britain  but  as  England. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  conquerors  had  established 
a  distinctive  system  of  law,  which  has  grown 
through  centuries  into  the  Common  Law  of  En- 
gland. As  their  system  of  government  was  wholly 
different  from  Roman  imperialism,  so  their  system 
of  law  was  wholly  different  from  the  Roman  law. 
Dr.  Frederick  W.  Maitland  says:*  "Eyes,  care- 
fully trained,  have  minutely  scrutinized  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  texts  without  finding  the  least  trace  of  a 
Roman  rule  outside  the  ecclesiastical  sphere." 

Of  the  period  of  Henry  VIII,  when  "Roman  law 
swept  like  a  flood  over  Germany,"  he  says  that  in 
England  "it  is  no  record  of  alien  jurisprudence  that 
must  be  chronicled  but  a  marvelous  resuscitation  of 
English  medieval  law." 

*  Article  on  English  Law,  "Encyclopedia  Britannica,"  vol.  ix. 
6 


66  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

In  spite  of  the  break  at  the  Norman  Con- 
quest, the  continuity  of  the  old  English  law,  which 
had  never  been  abandoned,  was  established  when 
Henry  I,  the  son  of  the  Conqueror,  solemnly  re- 
affirmed the  laws  of  Edward  the  Confessor  (that 
is,  the  Anglo-Saxon  laws  existing  under  that  reign). 
Their  substance  was  affirmed  anew  in  the  Magna 
Carta  of  King  John. 

"The  English  Common  Law  may  be  described  as  a  pre- 
eminently national  system.  Based  on  Saxon  constitutions, 
molded  by  Norman  lawyers,  and  jealous  of  foreign  sys- 
tems, it  is,  as  Bacon  says,  as  mixed  as  the  English  lan- 
guage and  as  truly  national.  And,  like  the  language,  it 
has  been  taken  into  other  English-speaking  countries,  and 
is  the  father  of  the  law  in  the  United  States." 

— "Encyclopedia  Britannica,"  vol.  vi,  p.  778. 

The  Jus  civile,  the  Civil  Law  of  Rome,  was  of 
necessity  pervaded  by  the  imperialistic  conception 
of  the  entire  Roman  government.  It  may  be  said 
in  very  general  terms  that  the  ideal  of  the  Roman 
law  was  repression,  while  that  of  the  English  law 
was  protection.  We  see  the  care  for  the  rights  of 
the  individual  in  the  great  principles  and  maxims 
of  English  law:  that  no  man  may  be  required  to 
give  evidence  which  would  incriminate  himself;  that 
no  man  may  be  put  in  jeopardy  twice  for  the  same 
offense;  in  the  maxim  that  "it  is  better  that  ten 
guilty  men  escape  than  that  one  innocent  man 
should  be  punished";  in  the  rights  of  habeas  corpus 
and  of  trial  by  jury.  Common  Law  has  faults 
enough,  and  much  of  the  study  of  English  jurists 


ANGLO-SAXON   ACHIEVEMENT         67 

has  been  to  remedy  those  faults.  Still,  as  a  system, 
it  aims  to  safeguard  the  rights  of  the  citizen,  so 
that  where  it  prevails  the  citizen  appeals  to  the  law 
as  once  the  Roman  citizens  would  "appeal  unto 
Caesar." 

They  had  built  up  an  individualistic  civilisation, 
of  which  their  laws  and  their  national  polity  were 
but  the  concrete  expression.  Even  the  Roman  his- 
torian Tacitus  remarks  the  personal  independence 
of  their  Germanic  ancestors  in  their  old  home,  how 
they  dwelt  alone,  each  in  his  own  little  dwelling. 
Not  only  was  each  habitation  independent  in  the 
early  Anglo-Saxon  days,  but  each  settlement  had 
the  same  guarded  independence.  Around  every  vil- 
lage was  a  space  of  common  land  which  none  might 
appropriate,  and  any  stranger  crossing  this  ground 
must  blow  a  horn  to  announce  his  approach,  as  other- 
wise he  might  be  taken  for  an  enemy  and  killed 
by  the  first  one  meeting  him.  Still  this  love  of 
separate  homes  is  deep  in  the  hearts  of  the  English 
and  of  all  their  descendants.  Even  in  closely  settled 
towns  and  villages  they  love  the  little  yards  enclosed 
by  fence  or  hedge,  marking  each  plot  of  ground  as 
"private  property"  of  those  who  dwell  there.  Em- 
ployers of  labor  prefer  in  many  callings  newly 
arrived  foreigners  to  native  Americans  because 
"Americans  do  not  like  to  work  in  gangs."  We 
find  the  strong  tendency  to  individualism  in  the  love 
of  home,  which  is  so  strong  a  passion  among  all 
descendants  of  the  English  race — not  merely  love 


68  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

of  native  land  but  of  the  very  abode  around  which 
cluster  the  dearest  memories  of  childhood  and  the 
love  of  maturer  life.  We  find  it  in  the  English 
maxim  that  "every  man's  house  is  his  castle";  in 
the  opposition  to  the  right  of  search,  except  as 
closely  and  narrowly  limited  by  specific  law.  By 
this  Pitt  symbolizes  the  independence  of  the 
individual  under  the  laws  of  England; 

"The  poorest  man  may  in  his  cottage  bid  defiance  to 
all  the  power  of  the  Crown.  It  may  be  frail;  its  roof 
may  shake;  the  wind  may  blow  through  it;  the  storms 
may  enter,  the  rain  may  enter, — but  the  King  of  England 
can  not  enter.  All  his  forces  dare  not  cross  the  threshold 
of  that  ruined  tenement." 

We  see  the  same  quality  manifested  in  the  freedom 
of  speech  and  of  the  press  that  prevails  in  England 
and  her  colonies  and  in  the  United  States  to  an 
extent  known  nowhere  else  on  earth. 

The  individualist  civilization  is  alone  immortal, 
because  its  life  is  supplied  by  countless  new  centers 
of  force,  ever  varying  and  ever  renewed.  It  is  only 
by  crushing  individual  initiative  that  imperialism 
ever  becomes,  or  can  become,  great,  and  by  that 
victory  it  dries  up  the  very  sources  of  supply  needed 
to  sustain  its  own  power.  The  imperialist  civiliza- 
tion is  doomed  to  inevitable  decay,  because  all  its 
myriad  lives  are  but  suckers  at  the  base  of  one 
mighty  stem,  repressed  and  dwarfed  by  the  over- 
shadowing greatness  of  the  one.  The  vitality  of  a 
family,  of  a  school,  a  university,  a  business  or  a 


ANGLO-SAXON  ACHIEVEMENT         69 

nation  will  be  ruined  by  too  much  control  and 
discipline.  Every  aristocracy  declines  except  as  it 
is  reinvigorated  with  new  blood  by  members  who 
''marry  below  their  station."  Every  dynasty  decays. 
Every  despotism  dies  of  dry-rot.  A  great  nation 
can  continue  great  only  by  the  new  and  infinitely 
varying  vigor  of  multitudinous  lives  in  free  and 
unrepressed  activity  and  expansion. 

To  have  built  such  a  civilization  and  won  for  it 
a  place  of  honor  and  power  among  the  nations  is 
an  achievement  well  worth  the  toil,  struggles  and 
battles  of  six  hundred  years,  and  justified  by  the 
triumphs  of  well-nigh  a  thousand  years  since  it  first 
became  an  accomplished  fact  upon  earth. 

This  wonderful  people  had  created  a  new  language 
of  distinct  individuality  and  singular  endurance.  Of 
the  Teutonic  family,  kindred  to  the  Gothic,  Danish, 
Icelandic,  Norwegian,  Swedish,  and  German,  yet 
like  no  one  of  these,  and  wholly  unlike  the  Romance 
languages,  whose  empire  began  just  south  of  the 
narrow  Channel  and  extended  through  France, 
Spain,  Portugal,  and  Italy  to  the  Mediterranean, 
the  Anglo-Saxon  stood  distinct  from  all.  From  the 
Celtic,  shut  in  with  it  in  the  North  and  West  of  the 
same  island,  it  was  separated  by  a  racial  antipathy 
which  has  been  so  persistent  that  though  Celtic  in- 
fluences have  made  their  way  into  English  literature, 
Celtic  words  have  never  formed  any  large  part 
either  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  or  of  the  English  lan- 
guage.    Though  the  English  language  was  later, 


70  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

under  the  stress  of  the  Norman  Conquest,  to  adopt 
numerous  elements  from  the  French  and  the  ancient 
classic  tongues,  yet  in  its  early  independence  it 
neither  asked  nor  welcomed  aid  from  any  other 
speech  except  where,  as  through  the  church,  some 
few  words  were  accepted  for  which,  in  its  own 
vocabulary,  there  were  no  equivalents.  Through 
all  changes  and  vicissitudes,  and  in  its  widest  ex- 
tension, the.  Anglo-Saxon  has  held,  and  still  holds, 
its  original  type,  and  is  to-day  the  fundamental  and 
dominant  element  of  English  speech.  It  seems  to 
be  an  expression  of  the  life  of  the  race  that  produced 
it,  and  as  indestructible  as  that  race. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  language  was  one  of  remark- 
able simplicity.  This  is  due  in  part  to  the  shortness 
of  its  words,  which  are  prevailingly  monosyllabic  or 
dissyllabic.  In  modern  English  this  is  often  said 
to  be  due  to  the  fact  that  the  longer  Anglo-Saxon 
words  fell  into  disuse  after  the  Norman  Conquest. 
But  this  explanation,  while  to  a  certain  extent  true, 
is  still  inadequate.  One  need  only  look  at  the  old 
Anglo-Saxon  poems,  as  of  Beowulf  or  Layamon, 
and,  without  knowing  the  Anglo-Saxon  language, 
his  eye  will  tell  him,  as  it  ranges  down  page  after 
page,  that  most  of  those  words  are  of  one  or  two 
syllables  each.  Any  longer  word  is  quite  sure  to  be 
a  proper  name  or  some  inflected  form  of  a  short 
word  increased  by  an  ending.  The  tendency  to 
short,  strong  words  was  deep  in  the  life  of  the  peo- 
ple.    The  Anglo-Saxons  were  not  a  speculative, 


ANGLO-SAXON  ACHIEVEMENT         71 

meditative,  philosophical,  nor  to  any  great  extent  a 
poetic  or  romantic,  people.  They  lived  very  close 
to  the  external  world.  They  dealt  chiefly  with  the 
concrete  and  the  obvious — the  practical.  Their  very 
poems  were  largely  narrative,  devoted  mainly  to  the 
exploits,  the  toils  or  the  hard  fights  of  heroes,  or, 
in  the  Christian  period,  of  saints  scarcely  to  be  dis- 
tinguished from  warriors;  their  moral  lessons  were 
quite  likely  to  be  conveyed  by  a  story  of  some  per- 
sonified virtues  or  vices,  depicted  as  very  crudely 
real  in  countenance,  form,  bearing  and  dress. 
Imaginative  touches  in  their  narratives  came  in  but 
incidentally,  to  give  vividness  to  the  story. 

Anglo-Saxon  men  were  warriors,  sailors,  farmers, 
and  traders.  Their  preference  was  for  brief,  rugged 
words  to  express  actual  objects  and  practical  ac- 
tivities. Their  language  is  constructed  as  if  they 
had  said,  "Why  use  two  syllables  where  one  will 
do?"  They  were  not  concerned  with  the  melody 
but  with  the  efficiency  of  their  speech.  Their  ambi- 
tion was  not  for  a  language  of  rippling  rhythm  but 
for  one  of  concrete  facts  and  of  doing  things.  They 
loved  strong  consonants  and  plenty  of  them,  with 
only  vowels  enough  to  float  the  consonants.  Thus 
the  very  word  "strong"  has  five  substantial  con- 
sonants with  but  one  vowel.  The  corresponding 
noun  in  the  old  Anglo-Saxon  was  "strengthu,"  but 
the  tendency  to  shortening  went  on  until  it  developed 
the  English  word  "strength,"  where  a  single  vowel 
must  do  duty  for  seven  consonants.    Yet  with  that 


72  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

combination   we   feel  perfectly   satisfied  and  very 
much  at  home. 

How  insistent  the  monosyllabic  tendency  of  the 
language  was  we  see  by  what  it  did  to  the  words 
it  adopted  in  the  early  day  from  the  Latin  and  the 
Greek,  The  Latin  dericus  became  the  Anglo-Saxon 
clerc  (English  clerk)  ;  the  Latin  monachiis  became 
the  Anglo-Saxon  munuc,  later  contracted  into  the 
English  monk  (which,  though  spelled  with  an  o,  is 
pronounced  with  aw);  while  the  Greek  kyriakon, 
"the  Lord's  house,"  became  the  Anglo-Saxon  circe, 
which,  by  some  almost  unimaginable  change,  has 
been  contracted  into  the  English  word  church.  The 
monosyllabic  tendency  became  the  genius  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon,  and  through  that  element  has  become 
a  controlling  influence  in  the  English  language. 
The  constant  abbreviation  of  words  to  some  short, 
compact  form  is  one  of  the  most  familiar  facts  in 
our  modern  English  speech.  The  Greek-Latin  com- 
pound, automobile,  becomes  the  "auto,"  or  is  super- 
seded by  the  simple  word  "car" ;  the  aeroplane  is 
constantly  called  the  "plane";  the  Greek  derivative 
telephone,  both  as  verb  and  noun,  is  commonly  con- 
tracted into  "phone";  while  the  Greek  word  tele- 
graph, both  as  verb  and  noun,  is  to  a  great  extent 
supplanted  by  the  plain  English  monosyllable  "wire" ; 
and  when  Zeppelin  dirigibles  were  seen  approaching 
London,  the  word  was  passed,  "Here  come  the 
Zeps!"  Our  language  is  full  of  monosyllabic  or 
dissyllabic   words    so    perfectly   shaped    upon    the 


ANGLO-SAXON  ACHIEVEMENT         1Z 

Anglo-Saxon  model  that  only  a  close  study  of  the 
dictionary  can  enable  us  to  know  that  they  are  not 
of  native  origin.  The  ancient  Anglo-Saxon  brevity 
of  forms  has  become  a  dominant  factor  in  English 
speech. 

These  short  words  are  readily  learned  and  easily 
remembered.  It  is  very  common  for  children  to 
catch  them  by  one  hearing.  This  fact  must  be  an 
important  aid  to  the  ready  and  wide  diffusion  of 
the  English  language,  which  has  become  so  striking 
a  fact  in  modern  times.  For  the  same  reason  these 
become  the  words  of  the  common  people.  The 
common  people  now,  as  in  ancient  days,  are  first 
and  most  directly  concerned  with  the  outward,  con- 
crete realities  of  home,  food,  and  shelter,  of  daily 
work  and  wages,  of  heat  and  cold,  hunger  and 
thirst,  storm  or  sunshine,  of  health  or  sickness,  hurt 
and  pain,  or  cheer  and  comfort.  With  the  advance 
of  popular  freedom  and  education,  the  common  peo- 
ple are  becoming  an  ever-increasing  factor  in  the 
affairs  of  nations  and  in  all  the  great  movements 
of  the  world.  To  help  them,  to  guide  them,  to 
instruct  them,  to  control  them, — even  to  please 
them, — one  must  speak  or  write  largely  in  the  simple, 
strong,  homely  and  homelike  Anglo-Saxon  that  has 
become  the  substantial  basis  of  the  mighty  English 
language  as  it  exists  to-day. 

Nor  must  it  be  forgotten  that  the  simplicity  of 
English  grammar,  later  perfected  by  the  fusion  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  with  the   Norman-French,   had 


74  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

begun  long  before  the  Norman  Conquest.  As  the 
various  tribes  of  Jutes,  Angles,  Saxons,  Danes  and 
Scandinavians  toiled,  traveled,  traded,  intermarried, 
or  even  as  they  met  in  each  others'  realms,  as  in- 
vaders or  invaded,  as  conquerors  or  conquered,  in 
their  ceaseless  wars,  they  were  constantly  learning 
each  others'  speech;  they  were  working  out  that 
great  law  that,  when  kindred  languages  meet  and 
blend,  while  words  are  interchanged,  inflections  and 
intricate  grammatical  idioms  fall  away.  Hence,  the 
Anglo-Saxon,  while  still  an  inflected  language,  had 
become  quite  simple  in  construction  even  in  the  days 
of  Alfred,  and  became  increasingly  so  up  to  the 
Norman  Conquest.  The  habit  of  dropping  trouble- 
some idioms  and  inflections  had  been  established. 
Simplicity  of  construction  was  already  a  marked 
quality  of  that  early  English,  and  had  prepared  the 
way  for  the  final  throwing  aside  of  all  that  was 
intricate  and  complicated  in  grammar  when  the 
early  English  united  with  the  Norman-French  in  the 
centuries  following  the  battle  of  Hastings.  The 
simplicity  of  English  had  become  a  recognized  fact 
and  a  strong  tendency  before  that  day,  and  this 
simplicity  has  become  an  important  element  of  its 
prominence  and  power  among  the  languages  of  the 
world. 


Ill 

THE   NORMAN   TRANSFORMATION 


Ill 

THE   NORMAN   TRANSFORMATION 

The  Anglo-Saxons  had  achieved  much,  but  they 
had  reached  their  hmit.  They  had  evolved  a  sta- 
tionary civilization.  Successful  in  agriculture  and 
trade,  they  seemed  satisfied  to  hold  what  they  had 
so  hardly  won,  content  with  mere  existence, — which, 
indeed,  they  had  been  forced  to  make  the  supreme 
object  of  toil  and  conflict  from  ancient  days.  In 
their  sea-girt  isle  they  lay,  like  a  bull-dog  in  his 
kennel,  dangerous  to  approach,  asking  no  more 
than  to  be  undisturbed  in  their  comfortable  isolation. 

Even  in  war,  which  had  been  so  largely  the  main 
business  of  life  for  them,  both  as  individuals  and 
as  a  nation,  they  had  made  no  improvement  and 
almost  no  change.  While  the  continental  nations 
had  developed  cavalry  to  a  high  degree  of  perfec- 
tion, clothing  both  the  mounted  knight  and  his 
horse  in  armor  of  steel,  the  English  were  practically 
destitute  of  cavalry.  Robert  Wace,  the  Norman 
poet  and  chronicler,  says  of  them:  "The  English 
know  not  how  to  joust  or  to  bear  arms  on  horse- 
back." The  Normans  had  adopted  chivalry,  knight- 
hood and  tournaments,  and  carried  the  system  to  a 
perfection  before  unknown.  But  still,  as  in  the 
ancient  days,  the  English  warrior  rode  his  horse 
to  the  battle-line,  then  dismounted,  and  sent  the 

n 


78  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

animal  to  the  rear.  Of  what  use  was  a  horse  to  a 
man  who  did  not  mean  to  run  away?  Harold  did 
this  very  thing  at  the  battle  of  Hastings,  dismount- 
ing at  the  opening  of  the  battle,  to  fight  and  to  fall 
on  foot,  at  the  base  of  the  royal  standard,  while 
his  true  men  fell  around  him,  occupying  in  death 
the  very  ground  on  which  they  had  stood  in  life. 
William  the  Norman,  on  the  contrary,  had  three 
horses  killed  under  him  that  day,  and  his  swift 
dashes  on  horseback  enabled  him  to  be  successively 
in  all  parts  of  the  field  and  in  personal  touch  with 
all  the  movements  and  needs  of  his  men. 

Though  the  English  bowmen  afterwards  became 
so  formidable  and  so  famous,  with  their  tough  yew- 
bows  and  their  cloth-yard  shafts,  the  English  of 
Harold's  day  appear  to  have  had  no  archers.  Prob- 
ably they  despised  the  bow  as  the  weapon  of  a  man 
who  sought  to  strike  his  enemy  from  a  distance 
without  daring  to  come  to  close  quarters,  and  who, 
when  attacked,  depended  on  his  lightness  and  speed 
in  running  away  rather  than  on  his  courage  to  stand 
and  fight.  The  Normans,  on  the  other  hand,  had 
developed  archery.  It  was  still  imperfect,  but  it 
gave  them  their  victory  at  Hastings,  as  missile 
weapons,  fitly  used,  always  will  prove  superior  to 
stationary  defenses. 

The  English  reliance  was  on  the  "shield-wall," 
which  for  centuries  had  been  "good  enough"  for 
their  fathers  and  for  them — where  stalwart  men 
stood  shoulder  to  shoulder,   their  shields  meeting 


NORMAN   TRANSFORMATION  79 

across  their  breasts,  and  behind  these,  in  every  man's 
hand,  the  sword  or  axe  to  strike  down  an  assailant 
who  ventured  too  near.  This  battle-formation  they 
had  made  practically  perfect  for  its  purpose,  so 
that  every  Norman  who  broke  through  the  barricade 
at  Hastings  was  slain  in  front  of  the  shield-wall, 
the  English  smiting  them  down  with  the  short  fierce 
cry  of  "Out!  Out!"  William  himself  despaired  of 
breaking  it  until,  as  the  day  drew  to  a  close,  he 
ordered  his  archers  to  shoot  into  the  air,  so  that 
their  arrows  would  fall  from  above  on  the  English 
line,  when  the  shield-wall  became  useless,  and  Harold 
himself  fell,  struck  in  the  eye  by  one  of  the  despised 
w^eapons  against  which  his  mighty  axe,  that  had 
smitten  down  horse  and  rider  at  a  single  blow,  was 
no  defense.  Nothing  is  more  impressive  in  the  story 
of  that  eventful  day  of  Hastings  or  Senlac  than,  on 
the  one  side,  the  versatility  of  the  Normans,  foiled 
and  repulsed  again  and  again  but  trying  one  device 
after  another  throughout  the  long  day;  and,  on  the 
other  side,  the  inflexibility  of  the  English,  standing 
like  rocks,  adhering  to  their  predetermined  plan, 
and,  even  after  defeat,  rallying  in  the  gathering 
darkness  still  to  hold  off  the  foe. 

The  battle  was  spectacular,  the  story  thrilling,  as 
the  consequences  were  momentous : 

"In  the  eleventh  century  there  is  a  single  year  and  a 
single  day  which  stand  forth  in  a  way  in  which  no  single 
day  or  year  stands  forth  in  the  ages  after  them.  There  is 
no  later  year  to  compare  to  the  year  in  which  the  crown 


80  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

of  England  was  worn  by  the  last  king  of  the  old  sacred 
and  immemorial  stock,  by  the  first  and  last  king  who 
reigned  purely  because  he  was  the  best  and  bravest  among 
his  people,  and  by  the  first  and  last  king  who  could  boast 
that  he  held  his  kingdom  purely  of  God  and  his  own 
sword.  There  is  no  one  day  in  later  times  to  compare  with 
that  memorable  morning  when  Northern  and  Southern 
Europe,  when  England  and  Normandy,  when  Harold  and 
William,  met  face  to  face  in  the  wager  of  battle  on  the 
day  of  Saint  Calixtus  (Oct.  14,  1066)." 
— Freeman,  "Norman  Conquest,"  vol.  Ill,  ch.  11,  p.  4. 

That  day  sharply  precipitated  a  change  that  was 
bound  to  come.  Whatever  is  stationary  is  doomed 
to  disaster  and  threatened  with  destruction.  The 
onward  moving  force  of  the  world  and  of  the  uni- 
verse will  strain  against  it  perilously,  and  will  either 
remold  it  or  sweep  it  away.  If  it  can  evolve  from 
within  itself  some  renewing,  revivifying  force,  it 
may  join  the  progress  of  the  new  age,  rich  and 
strong  with  experience  of  the  old.  If  the  changing 
force  can  not  come  by  evolution  from  within,  it  will 
come  by  aggression  or  invasion  from  without.  In 
the  case  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  who  had  now  become 
the  English,  this  changing,  remolding  power  came, 
with  cyclonic  violence,  in  the  Norman  invasion. 
Of  the  Normans  we  are  told:* 

"Their  character  is  well  painted  by  a  contem- 
porary historian  of  their  exploits,  Geoffrey  Mala- 
terra  {Gaiifridiis  a  Malaterra).  He  sets  the  Nor- 
mans before  us  as  'a  race  especially  marked  by 
cunning,  despising  their  own  inheritance  in  the  hope 

*  Article  on  the  Normans  in  the  "Encyclopedia  Britannica,"  by  E.  A. 
Freeman,  author  of  the  "History  of  the  Norman  Conquest  of  England." 


NORMAN  TRANSFORMATION  81 

of  winning  a  greater,  eager  after  both  gain  and 
dominion,  given  to  imitation  of  all  kinds,  holding  a 
certain  mean  between  lavishness  and  greediness. 
Their  chief  men  were  especially  lavish  through  their 
desire  of  good  report.  They  were,  moreover,  a  race 
skilful  in  flattery,  given  to  the  study  of  eloquence, 
so  that  the  very  boys  were  orators,  a  race  alto- 
gether unbridled  unless  held  firmly  down  by  the 
yoke  of  justice.  They  were  enduring  of  toil,  hunger, 
and  cold,  whenever  fortune  laid  it  on  them,  given 
to  hunting  and  hawking,  delighting  in  the  pleasures 
of  horses,  and  of  all  weapons  and  garb  of  war. 

"Several  of  these  features  stand  out  very  clearly 
in  Norman  history.  The  cunning  of  the  Normans 
is  plain  enough;  so  is  their  impatience  of  restraint, 
unless  held  down  by  a  strong  master.  Love  of 
imitation  is  also  marked.  Little  of  original  inven- 
tion can  be  traced  to  any  strictly  Norman  source, 
but  no  people  were  ever  more  eager  to  adopt  from 
other  nations,  to  take  into  their  service  and  friend- 
ship from  any  quarter  men  of  learning  and  skill 
and  eminence  of  every  kind.  To  this  quality  is  per- 
haps to  be  attributed  the  fact  that  a  people  who  did 
so  much,  who  settled  and  conquered  in  so  large  a 
part  of  Europe,  has  practically  vanished  from  the 
face  of  the  earth  [that  is,  as  Normans].  They 
adopted  the  French  tongue,  and  were  among  the  first 
to  practise  and  spread  abroad  its  literature.  They 
adopted  the  growing  feudal  doctrines  of  France,  and 
worked  them  both  in  Normandy  and  in  England 
into  a  harmonious  system.  From  northern  Italy,  as 
it  would  seem,  they  adopted  a  style  of  architecture 
which  grew  in  their  hands,  both  in  Normandy  and 
in  England,  into  a  marked  and  living  form  of  art 
[a  style  characterized  by  the  round  arch  and  heavy. 


82  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

massive  columns].  Settled  in  Gaul,  the  Scandi- 
navian, from  a  sea-faring  man,  became  a  landsman. 
Even  in  land-warfare  he  cast  aside  the  weapons  of 
his  forefathers;  but  he  soon  learned  to  handle  the 
weapons  of  his  new  land  with  greater  prowess  than 
they  had  ever  been  handled  before." 

In  the  realm  of  intellect,  the  Norman  "welcomed 
the  lore  of  every  stranger" : 

"Lanfranc  brought  law  and  discipline;  Anselm 
brought  theology  and  philosophy.  The  gifts  of 
each  were  adopted,  and  bore  fruit  on  both  sides  of 
the  Channel.  And  no  people  ever  knew  better  how 
to  be  all  things  to  all  men.  The  Norman  power  in 
England  was  founded  on  full  and  speedy  union  with 
the  one  nation  [the  Anglo-Saxon]  among  whom 
they  found  themselves." 

It  was  this  union  of  races  that  made  the  English 
people  and  the  English  nation,  and  made  them  con- 
querors. Without  this  power  of  adaptation,  if  the 
Norman  conquerors  had  remained  a  separate  ruling 
caste,  holding  down  the  Saxons  as  serfs  if  they 
could,  a  great,  murmuring,  discontented  host,  ready 
at  any  time  to  side  with  any  invader  against  their 
hated  masters,  England  could  not  have  held  its 
own  against  the  Armada  or  against  Napoleon,  not 
to  speak  of  conquering.  Because  the  Normans  had 
the  good  sense  and  the  pliancy  to  fuse  with  the 
sturdy,  stubborn  Saxons,  the  nation  has  inherited 
the  mingled  qualities  of  both  the  mighty  races  from 
which  it  sprung,  and  no  enemy  has  ever  been  able 


NORMAN  TRANSFORMATION  83 

to  play  off  Norman  noble  against  Saxon  serf,  or 
Saxon  serf  against  Norman  noble.  Every  foe  who 
has  tried  it  has  found  one  English  people. 

With  the  above-quoted  description  should  be  read 
Macaulay's  splendid  sketch:* 

"The  Normans  were  then  the  foremost  race  of  Chris- 
tendom. Their  valor  and  ferocity  had  made  them  con- 
spicuous among  the  rovers  whom  Scandinavia  had  sent 
forth  to  ravage  Western  Europe.  Their  sails  were  long 
the  terror  of  both  coasts  of  the  channel.  Their  arms 
were  repeatedly  carried  far  into  the  heart  of  the  Car- 
lovingian  empire,  and  were  victorious  under  the  walls  of 
Maestricht  and  Paris.  At  length  one  of  the  feeble  heirs 
of  Charlemagne  ceded  to  the  strangers  a  fertile  province, 
watered  by  a  noble  river,  and  contiguous  to  the  sea,  which 
was  their  favorite  element.  In  that  province  they  founded 
a  mighty  state,  which  gradually  extended  its  influence 
over  the  neighboring  principalities  of  Britanny  and  Maine. 
Without  laying  aside  that  dauntless  valor  which  had  been 
the  terror  of  every  land  from  the  Elbe  to  the  Pyrenees, 
the  Normans  rapidly  acquired  all,  and  more  than  all,  the 
knowledge  and  refinement  which  they  found  in  the  country 
where  they  settled.  Their  courage  secured  their  territory 
against  foreign  invasion.  They  established  internal  order, 
such  as  had  long  been  unknown  in  the  Frank  empire. 
They  embraced  Christianity,  and  with  Christianity  they 
learned  a  great  part  of  what  the  clergy  had  to  teach. 
They  abandoned  their  native  speech  and  adopted  the 
French  tongue,  in  which  the  Latin  was  the  predominant 
element.  They  speedily  raised  their  new  language  to  a 
dignity  and  importance  which  it  had  never  before  pos- 
sessed. They  found  it  a  barbarous  jargon;  they  fixed  it 
in  writing,  and  they  employed  it  in  legislation,  in  poetry 
and  in  romance.  They  renounced  that  brutal  intem- 
perance to  which   all  the  other  branches  of  the  great 

*  Macaulay,   "History   of  England,"   vol.   I,  ch.    i,  p.   8. 


84  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

German  family  were  too  much  inclined.  The  polite  luxury 
of  the  Norman  presented  a  striking  contrast  to  the  coarse 
voracity  and  drunkenness  ot  his  Saxon  and  Danish  neigh- 
bors. He  loved  to  display  his  magnificence,  not  in  huge 
piles  of  food  and  hogsheads  of  strong  drink,  but  in  large 
and  stately  edifices,  rich  armor,  gallant  horses,  choice 
falcons,  well  ordered  tournaments,  banquets  delicate  rather 
than  abundant,  and  wines  remarkable  rather  for  their 
exquisite  flavor  than  for  their  intoxicating  power.  That 
chivalrous  spirit  which  has  exercised  so  powerful  an  in- 
fluence on  the  politics,  morals,  and  manners  of  all  the 
European  nations,  was  found  in  the  highest  exaltation 
among  the  Norman  nobles.  Those  nobles  were  distin- 
guished by  their  graceful  bearing  and  insinuating  address. 
They  were  distinguished  also  by  their  skill  in  negotiation 
and  by  a  natural  eloquence  which  they  assiduously  cul- 
tivated. It  was  the  boast  of  one  of  their  historians  that 
the  Norman  gentlemen  were  orators  from  the  cradle. 
But  their  chief  fame  was  derived  from  their  military 
exploits.  Every  country,  from  the  Atlantic  Ocean  to  the 
Dead  Sea,  witnessed  the  prodigies  of  their  discipline  and 
valor." 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  Normans  were 
racially  akin  to  the  English  whom  they  conquered, 
though  both  sides  had  long  forgotten  the  relationship. 
Not  Frenchmen  but  Normans  conquered  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  realm.  England's  trouble  was  still  from  the 
Northmen.  Almost  at  the  moment  when,  just  after 
the  death  of  Alfred  the  Great,  the  English  had 
begun  the  reconquest  of  the  "Danelaw,"  as  the 
northeastern  portion  of  England  was  called,  which 
the  Northmen  known  as  "Danes"  had  subjugated — 
in  910 — other  hordes  of  the  terrible  Northmen, 
under  Rolf  or  Rollo,  known  as  the  Ganger  (the 


NORMAN  TRANSFORMATION  85 

Walker),  had  mastered  territory  in  the  north  of 
France.  They  came  as  pirates,  and  their  land  was 
long  known  as  the  "pirates'  land" ;  but  the  French 
king,  Charles  the  Simple,  deemed  it  wisest  to  cede 
the  land  and  have  the  conquerors  as  subjects  rather 
than  as  foes.  Rolf  was  baptized,  received  the  king's 
daughter  in  marriage,  and  became  his  vassal  for  the 
conquered  territory,  which  he  now  received  as  a 
fief  of  France.  As  showing  the  temper  of  the  newly 
settled  barbarians,  it  is  related  that,  in  the  course  of 
the  ceremony  of  doing  homage  for  his  land,  Rolf 
was  told  that  he  must  now  kiss  the  king's  foot.  This 
he  bluntly  refused  to  do.  Then  a  courtier  suggested 
that  he  could  do  it  by  proxy,  deputing  one  of  his 
men  to  perform  the  service.  The  sturdy  Northman 
detailed  for  the  purpose  obeyed  his  chief,  but  had 
no  thought  of  kneeling  before  the  king.  He  walked 
forward,  seized  the  king's  foot  and  lifted  it  for  the 
kiss,  with  the  result  of  throwing  the  king  on  his  back. 
In  view  of  the  quality  of  their  fierce  guests,  the 
French  seem  to  have  passed  the  incident  without 
remark  or  protest.  The  name  of  Northman  now 
came  to  be  softened  into  Norman,  and  the  newly 
acquired  land  of  the  Northmen  or  Normans  came 
to  be  known  as  Normandy.  Gradually  the  con- 
querors laid  aside  their  barbarian  customs  and 
traits. 

"No  race  has  ever  shown  a  greater  power  of  absorbing 
all  the  nobler  characteristics  of  the  people  with  whom 
they  came  in  contact,  or  of  infusing  their  own  energy  into 


86  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

them.  During  the  long  reign  of  Duke  Richard  the  Fear- 
less (grandson  of  Rolf),  which  lasted  from  945  to  996, 
the  heathen  Northmen  pirates  became  French  Christians 
and  feudal  at  heart.  The  old  Norse  language  lived  only 
at  Bayeux  and  in  a  few  local  names.  As  the  old  Northern 
freedom  died  silently  away,  the  descendants  of  the  pirates 
became  feudal  nobles,  and  the  'pirates'  land'  sank  into  the 
most  loyal  of  the  fiefs  of  France." 

— Green,  "History  of  the  English  People,"  vol.  I,  bk.  i, 
ch.  4,  p.  142. 

Thus  Freeman,  in  his  splendid  description,  errs 
in  speaking  of  "Northern  and  Southern  Europe" 
as  in  conflict  on  the  battlefield  of  Hastings.  Though 
citizens  of  France  by  adoption,  the  Normans  were 
racially  Northmen  still.  From  the  Anglo-Saxon 
Conquest  of  449  to  the  Norman  Conquest  of  1066, 
all  the  peoples  who  conquered  a  place  in  England, — 
Jutes,  Angles,  Saxons,  Danes  and  Normans, — were 
kindred  in  race.  This  fact  made  possible  the  com- 
plete union  of  these  various  types  in  the  one  English 
people,  a  union  which  has  never  crossed  the  line 
of  the  Celtic  race;  for  Scots,  Welsh,  and  Irish,  while 
politically  associated  in  the  United  Kingdom,  are 
still  separated  from  the  English  by  distinct  and 
distinctive  racial  peculiarities. 

The  vigor  of  the  new  Norman  type  is  shown  by 
the  computation  of  time.  From  the  recognized 
settlement  of  the  Normans  in  France  in  912  to 
their  conquest  of  England  in  1066  is  but  154  years. 
In  a  century  and  a  half  they  had  developed  from  a 
pirate  horde  to  one  of  the  most  advanced  and  cul- 


NORMAN  TRANSFORMATION  87 

tured  peoples  of  their  day,  having  adopted  a  new 
language,  new  customs  in  peace  and  war,  and 
founded  a  distinctive  and  noble  style  of  architecture. 
In  that  century  and  a  half  they  had  accomplished 
more  in  many  ways  than  the  Anglo-Saxons  had 
done  in  six  hundred  years. 

It  seems  probable  that  William  the  Conqueror  at 
first  meant  to  make  himself  an  English  king,  as 
Cnut  (or  Canute)  the  Dane  had  done  before  him. 
The  cases,  however,  were  different.  Cnut  sent  home 
all  his  forces  except  a  body-guard  of  household 
troops,  and  relied  wholly  on  his  English  subjects. 
But  William  was  under  actual  or  implied  engage- 
ments to  the  mixed  multitude  of  Norman  and  other 
adventurers  who  had  aided  him  to  win  the  English 
crown — engagements  which  could  be  fulfilled  only 
by  gifts  of  English  baronies  and  lands.  When  these 
were  administered  by  their  new  masters  with  utter 
disregard  of  the  long  recognized  rights  of  English 
freemen,  a  national  revolt  arose,  which  was  stamped 
out  with  such  terrible  severity  that  we  wonder  how 
the  subjugated  English  could  ever  rise  again.  Of 
William's  suppression  of  the  rebellion  in  the  North, 
we  read: 

"Town  and  village  were  harried  and  burned;  their  in- 
habitants were  slain  or  driven  over  the  Scottish  border. 
....  Crops,  cattle,  the  very  implements  of  husbandry, 
were  so  mercilessly  destroyed  that  a  famine  which  fol- 
lowed is  said  to  have  swept  off  more  than  a  hundred 
thousand  victims.    Half  a  century  later,  indeed,  the  land 


88  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

still  lay  bare  of  culture  and  deserted  of  men  for  sixty 
miles  northward  of  York." 

— Green,  "History  of  the  English  People,"  vol.  I,  bk.  i, 
ch.  4,  p.  154. 

It  would  seem  that  those  once  so  utterly  crushed 
must  remain  forevermore  a  subjugated  race  and 
their  language  become  the  unconsidered  jargon  of 
slaves. 

But  the  staying  power  of  the  English  race  forced 
it  to  be  still  considered.  William  himself  guardedly 
reaffirmed  the  laws  of  Edward  the  Confessor,  "ex- 
cept for  such  changes  as  the  reigning  king  had  made 
for  the  good  of  the  people  of  the  English."  He  kept 
to  a  great  extent  the  old  local  organizations  and 
customs.  Freeman  says,  "The  most  of  his  writs 
and  other  acts  are  in  Latin,  a  good  many  are  in 
English;  not  one  is  in  French.  The  English  writs 
of  William  follow  the  ancient  formula."  We  do 
not  need  to  wait,  as  we  are  often  bidden  to  do,  for 
the  reign  of  John  or  of  Edward  III  to  find  the  return 
of  the  English  people  to  power  in  the  State.  It 
began  at  the  Conqueror's  death,  when  his  second 
son,  William,  secured  the  crown  of  England,  while 
his  elder  brother,  Robert,  became  but  Duke  of 
Normandy.  Then  the  Norman  baronage  of  En- 
gland rose  in  arms  in  behalf  of  Robert,  and  it  was 
only  the  support  of  the  English  people  that  gave 
William  II  the  victory.  After  his  death,  when  his 
younger  brother,  Henry,  with  even  less  of  hereditary 
right,  assumed  the  crown  of  England,  he  found  his 


NORMAN  TRANSFORMATION  89 

Norman  baronage  ready  to  support  the  claims  of 
Robert.  Against  this  danger  Henry's  resource  was 
to  throw  himself  unreservedly  upon  the  support  of 
the  English  people.  He  gave  them  a  charter  of 
liberties,  undoubtedly  the  model  of  the  Great  Charter 
of  a  later  day.  He  promised  to  restore  the  English 
law — "the  law  of  Edward" — as  it  existed  before 
the  Norman  Conquest,  and  to  relinquish  and  forbid 
all  tyrannical  exactions.  As  the  pledge  of  all,  he 
married  a  princess  of  the  Saxon  line,  a  direct 
descendant  of  Alfred,  thus  uniting  in  the  royal 
family  of  England  the  blood  of  Anglo-Saxon  and 
of  Norman  kings.  Then,  when  Robert  landed  in 
England,  depending  on  the  support  of  the  great 
barons,  he  found  himself  facing  an  English  army, 
and  deemed  it  wise  to  retire  without  a  battle.  Five 
years  later  Henry  led  an  English  army  across  the 
Channel  and  at  Tenchebray,  in  1106,  defeated  the 
Normans  on  their  own  soil,  and  made  the  duch}^  of 
Normandy  a  dependency  of  the  English  crown. 

"Henceforth  it  was  impossible  that  the  two  peoples 
should  remain  parted  from  each  other;  so  quick,  indeed, 
was  their  union  that  the  very  name  of  Norman  had  passed 
away  in  half  a  century,  and  at  the  accession  of  Henry's 
grandson  (in  1154)  it  was  impossible  to  distinguish  be- 
tween the  descendants  of  the  conquerors  and  those  of  the 
conquered  at  Senlac  (Hastings)." 
— Green,  "History  of  the  English  People,"  vol.  I,  bk.  ii, 

ch.  2,  p.  182. 

The  Norman  infusion  had  entered  into  the  life  of 
the  English  people.     England  did  not  become  Nor- 


90  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

man.  As  in  England,  before  the  Conquest,  we  see 
what  the  Anglo-Saxon  was  without  the  Norman, 
so  in  Normandy,  after  the  Conquest,  we  see  what 
the  Norman  was  without  the  Anglo-Saxon.  It  was 
the  union,  the  fusion,  of  the  two  kindred  peoples 
that  made  the  English  people  and  the  English  lan- 
guage what  they  have  been  in  modern  history.  The 
Norman  spirit  of  adventure,  enterprise  and  far- 
reaching  ambition  has  modified  the  solid  stability 
of  the  Saxon ;  Norman  ideals  of  beauty,  refinement, 
elegance,  grace  and  courtesy,  higher  and  finer  than 
t"he  Anglo-Saxon  knew,  came  with  the  Norman 
knighthood  and  the  Norman  speech.  Architecture, 
from  the  rude  and  imperfect  previous  endeavors, 
sprang  suddenly  into  splendor  and  grandeur  under 
Norman  influence.  Classical  learning  made  great 
advances,  and  the  knowledge  and  use  of  Latin  was 
common  among  the  cultured  classes.  The  ready 
response  of  Norman  venturesomeness  to  the  Cru- 
sades increased  knowledge  of  and  interest  in  dis- 
tant lands.  At  the  same  time,  the  Anglo-Saxon 
solidity,  love  of  home  and  of  the  home-land,  that 
devotion  to  the  actual,  the  concrete,  and  the  obvious, 
to  the  things  man  can  see  with  his  eyes,  grasp  with 
his  hands  and  on  which  he  can  set  his  foot  (what 
we  call  the  English  tendency  to  the  "practical"), 
and  the  steady,  stubborn,  unyielding  valor  against 
all  odds  and  even  in  the  face  of  defeat  and  disaster, — 
these  Anglo-Saxon  qualities  remained.  The  history 
of  England  ever  since  has  been  of  the  struggle  of 


NORMAN   TRANSFORMATION  91 

these  two  types,  alternately  dominating  English 
civilization,  politics,  and  war.  It  is  not  by  accident 
but  by  a  deep,  inherent  necessity  that  two  great 
parties  of  Liberals  and  Conservatives,  under  what- 
ever various  names,  have  divided  and  alternately 
controlled  the  kingdom  and  the  empire.  As  now 
one  and  now  the  other  of  these  antagonistic  ten- 
dencies has  prevailed,  as  one  has  disarranged,  ham- 
pered or  restricted  the  other,  the  many  sided  English 
people  have  somehow,  to  use  their  own  homely 
phrase,  "muddled  through,"  often  to  a  success  that 
has  amazed  even  themselves.  Turn  where  we  will 
in  English  history  or  language,  we  can  not  get  away 
from  the  mingling  of  races  that  has  modified  all. 
The  English  language,  as  it  exists  to-day,  has 
written  all  over  it  the  historic  story.  To  quote 
Freeman  again  :* 

"The  changes  in  language  which  followed  the  Norman 
Conquest  were  ....  of  two  kinds.  There  is  the  great 
influx  of  foreign  words  into  our  vocabulary,  and  there  is 
the  loss  of  inflexions  and  the  general  breaking  up  of  gram- 
matical   forms The   change   in  grammar   has   its 

parallel  in  other  Teutonic  languages ;  the  change  in  vo- 
cabulary, in  anything  like  the  degree  in  which  it  took 
place  in  English,  is  peculiar  to  our  own  tongue.  It  is  the 
direct  result  of  what  happened  in  Britain,  and  did  not 
happen  elsewhere;  namely,  the  conquest  of  a  Teutonic 
people  by  Romance-speaking  conquerors. 

"For  three  hundred  years  English  ceased  to  be  a  literary 

and  courtly  language English  had  become  a  vulgar 

tongue,  the  tongue  which  was  the  daily  speech  only  of 

*  "History  of  the  Norman,  Conquest,"  vol.  V,  ch.  2Si  p.  514- 


92  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

the  less  cultivated  classes.     The  tongue  of  learning  was 
Latin;  the  tongue  of  polite  intercourse  was  French." 

How,  then,  did  English  ever  rise  again?  There 
are,  first,  to  be  considered  the  pliancy  and  adapta- 
bility, the  "imitative  quality,"  of  the  Normans, 
which  had  led  them  to  adopt  the  French  language 
in  Normandy.  There  was  more  in  the  steady  rise 
of  the  English  people,  after  the  death  of  the  Con- 
queror, to  power  in  the  State,  in  government  and 
war.  What  was  true  of  the  position  of  the  English 
speech  in  one  generation  would  be  less  true  in  the 
next  and  the  next.  When  a  Saxon  princess  came 
to  the  throne  as  the  bride  of  Henry  I,  the  Con- 
queror's son,  when  Norman  kings  had  again  and 
again  to  depend  on  the  loyalty  of  their  English 
subjects  to  defend  them  against  their  own  barons 
or  against  claimants  from  beyond  the  sea,  the 
speech  of  the  English  people  thus  rising  in  im- 
portance could  not  be  wholly  neglected  or  despised. 
Finally,  and  probably  most  important  of  all,  was 
the  stubborn  inflexibility  of  the  native  English  race. 
They  would  not  give  up  the  English  speech.  The 
English  yeomanry  made  up  the  substance  of  English 
armies.  Agriculture,  trade,  and  commerce  were 
chiefly  in  their  hands.  To  deal  with  them,  to  in- 
fluence them,  to  command  them,  even  to  live  with 
them,  it  was  necessary  for  the  government  and 
courtly  classes  to  learn  their  speech.  As  inter- 
marriage became  an  increasing  factor,  the  English 
mothers    would    persistently   teach    their   children 


NORMAN  TRANSFORMATION  93 

English  as  the  "mother-tongue."  Nurses  and  ser-  . 
vants  in  weaUhy  homes,  the  laborers  on  great  estates, 
the  workmen  in  all  mechanic  crafts,  the  tradesmen 
in  all  shops,  would  be  chiefly  English.  Children 
and  youth  would  grow  up  surrounded  by  the  En- 
glish speech.  More  and  more  the  French  language 
would  come  to  seem  courtly,  indeed,  but  somewhat 
pedantic  and  foreign,  a  luxury  rather  than  a  neces- 
sity of  life.  It  may  be  broadly  stated  that  for  three 
hundred  years  the  Normans  tried  in  vain  to  make 
Englishmen  speak  French,  till  at  length  they  found 
it  easier  themselves  to  learn  English. 

At  the  same  time  the  common  people  were  con-  , 
stantly  picking  up  isolated  French  words  from  the 
cultured  classes,  reshaping  them  into  English  form, 
and  weaving  them  into  their  own  speech.  When,  / 
at  length,  Wyclif 's  Bible  had  popularized  the  English 
speech  in  written  form  and  Chaucer's  poetry  had 
proved  its  literary  power,  the  victory  was  won  and 
English  became  the  one  language  of  England. 

But  English  was  now  a  language  greatly  modified, 
as  English  civilization  had  been  modified  by  the 
Norman  influence.  The  rejection  of  inflections,  that 
had  begun  as  the  various  Teutonic  dialects  coalesced 
in  England  before  the  Norman  Conquest,  had  been 
rapidly  accelerated  as  French  and  English  were 
interwoven  on  the  soil  of  England.  The  supply  of 
a  lack  in  English  words  from  the  French  had  opened 
the  way  to  constant  new  derivations  from  the  classic 
tongues  of  Greek  and  Latin,  but  always  transformed 


94  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

to  the  dominant  English  type.  The  foundation  had 
been  laid  for  the  rich  store  of  English  synonyms 
that  now  enable  our  language  to  express  so  felicit- 
ously all  varying  shades  of  thought.  The  strength 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  had  been  retained,  but  its 
heaviness  had  been  relieved  by  a  considerable  absorp- 
tion of  the  mobility,  vividness,  and  grace  of  the 
French,  English  is  a  composite  but  not  an  acci- 
dental language.  It  is  not  made  up  of  words  pitched 
together  as  they  might  be,  as  a  mere  medium  of 
communication;  but  the  selective  power  of  mighty 
peoples,  often  unconscious,  but  always  controlling, 
chose  and  correlated  its  various  elements,  to  frame 
the  speech  which,  through  the  five  hundred  years 
since  the  day  of  Chaucer  and  Wyclif,  has  built  a 
wondrous  literature  and  become  the  messenger  of 
freedom  and  of  a  high  and  progressive  civilization 
around  the  world. 

Enthusiasts  for  the  ancient  speech  greatly  err 
when  they  refer  to  *'the  Anglo-Saxon-speaking 
peoples."  Our  language  is  vastly  improved,  en- 
nobled and  refined  beyond  anything  that  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  ever  knew.  The  Normans  introduced  words 
of  elegance,  for  rich  dress  and  furniture,  for  fine 
horses  and  arms,  for  feasting,  delicate  rather  than 
sumptuous,  for  stately  and  beautiful  buildings,  for 
the  usages  of  courtesy  and  chivalry.  Through  their 
language  they  opened  the  way  to  a  literature  of 
grace  and  beauty  previously  unknown  to  the  Anglo- 
Saxons.     All  Chaucer's  early  work  was  either  in 


NORMAN  TRANSFORMATION  95 

translations  from  the  French  or  under  the  influence 
of  French  models. 

But  this  was  by  no  means  the  Normans'  greatest 
service.  It  was,  indeed,  much  to  awaken  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  to  possibilities  of  grace  and  beauty,  such  as 
their  own  rugged  speech  had  never  attained.  But 
the  supreme  triumph  of  the  Norman  influence — at 
the  time  unintended  and  unperceived — was  in  im- 
planting the  idea  that  the  deficiencies  of  the  native 
English  could  be  supplied  from  without;  that  the 
undeveloped  people  need  not  wait  till  their  language 
grew  to  a  higher  type  by  the  evolution  of  centuries, 
but  that  they  could  begin  them,  as  they  were  to 
bring  in  many  gems  already  set  in  the  literature 
of  another  speech.  If  from  the  French,  why  not 
also  from  the  Italian  and  the  Latin  ?  Why  not  from 
the  Greek  ?  That  process  once  begun,  the  language 
and  the  people  started  on  a  path  of  limitless  advance. 
The  language  was  not  forever  to  spin  the  web  of 
its  future,  like  the  spider,  out  of  its  own  bowels, 
but  to  gather  from  every  field,  far  and  wide,  every 
treasure  suited  to  its  purposes,  as  the  bird  builds 
her  nest.  Thus  the  language  and  the  people  were 
saved  from  that  too  intensive  culture  that  breeds  in 
and  in,  that  makes  a  language  and  a  people  incapable 
of  seeing  beyond  the  horizon  of  their  own  civiliza- 
tion, and  leads  them  to  consider  everything,  however 
uncouth  or  monstrous,  as  good,  beautiful,  and 
sacred,  so  long  as  it  is  their  very  own.  Under  the 
Norman  influence  began  that  wide  catholicity  of  En- 


96  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

glish  appropriation  which  gathers  the  treasures  of 
every  tongue  to  enrich  our  own,  so  that  the  choice  of 
words  becomes  a  question  not  of  origin  but  of 
effective  expression. 


IV 
ANGLO-SAXON  TO  ENGLISH  SPEECH 


IV 


ANGLO-SAXON  TO  ENGLISH  SPEECH 

Th^  English-speaking  man  who  attemps  to  read 
one  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  poems  with  a  literal  trans- 
lation feels  at  first  that  he  is  puzzling  over  an 
uncouth  foreign  tongue,  until  suddenly  he  says, 
"Why,  this  word  is  English,  a  little  differently 
spelled;"  or,  "This  word  is  English,  with  a  little 
change  of  meaning,"  and  soon  he  feels  that  he  is 
dealing  with  far-off  kindred.  There  is  something 
homelike  in  the  language  that  is  not  in  Latin,  Greek, 
or  Italian,  for  instance.  The  scholar  soon  traces  a 
multitude  of  points  of  contact.  Modern  English 
is  the  ancient  English,  transformed,  but  not  super- 
seded. 

The  earliest  pictures  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  civiliza- 
tion are  found  in  ancient  poems  or  poetical  frag- 
ments. Among  these  stands  preeminent  the  poem 
of  Beowulf,  which  has  been  termed  "The  Old  En- 
glish Epic."  It  seems  to  belong  to  the  period  pre- 
ceding the  Anglo-Saxon  conquest  of  Britain,  as  it 
contains  no  mention  of  England  or  Britain,  and  lays 
its  scenes  in  South  Sweden  and  Denmark.  The  one 
manuscript  containing  the  poem,  now  in  the  British 
Museum,  is  assigned  by  scholars  to  the  tenth  century, 

99 


100  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

and  the  composition  of  the  poem  is  beHeved  to  date 
back  to  the  eighth  century.  The  poem  contains 
3,183  lines.  All  probably  came  to  England  in  a 
series  of  lays  transmitted  from  bard  to  bard,  united 
at  length  by  some  master  mind  into  a  continuous 
work,  yet  introducing  at  intervals  fragments  of  older 
lays  not  connected  with  the  general  movement  of  the 
poem.  Touches  of  Christian  thought,  appearing  at 
various  points,  are  believed  to  have  been  inwrought 
in  the  later  recension  and  not  to  have  belonged  to 
the  original,  which  was  probably  wholly  heathen. 
The  hero,  Beowulf,  was  the  nephew  of  Hygelac, 
a  king  of  the  Geatas,  of  south  Sweden,  and  was  in 
his  youth  a  famed  sea-rover  and  warrior.  In  his 
home  in  Sweden  he  heard  that  Heorot,  the  hall  of 
Hrothgar,  a  king  of  Jutland  or  Denmark,  was 
haunted  by  a  monster  named  Grendel,  half-human, 
half-fiend,  the  "moor  mark-stepper,"  who  beset  the 
moors  and  the  wilderness,  and  would  come  night 
after  night  to  bear  away  whomsoever  he  might  find 
asleep  in  the  great  hall,  to  be  devoured  by  him  in 
his  ocean-cave.  The  young  and  mighty  Beowulf, 
who  has  already  done  many  deeds  of  prowess,  and 
who  has  the  strength  of  thirty  men,  resolves  to  set 
Hrothgar  free  from  this  curse.  The  poem  opens 
abruptly,  as  a  minstrel's  song.  We  can  imagine  the 
bard  striking  some  chords  on  his  harp,  while  the 
audience  waits  expectant,  when  suddenly  he  bursts 
into  song: 


ANGLO-SAXON   SPEECH  101 

Hpset!  pe  Gar-Dena  in  geardagum 
J)e6d-cyninga  jDrym  gefrunen, 
hu  6a  set)elingas  ellen  fremedon. 

This  looks  very  forbidding,  on  account  of  three 
special  Anglo-Saxon  characters,  which  all  occur 
in  this  one  brief  extract:  ])  (called  wen)=w; 
]>  (called  thorn),  and  S  (called  edh),  each=^/?. 
There  was  undoubtedly  an  original  distinction  be- 
tween ]>  and  S,  the  former  indicating  the  sharp 
th,  as  in  thm,  the  latter  the  flat  th,  as  in  this;  but 
the  two  characters  were  so  confused  by  later  scribes 
that  all  distinction  is  lost,  except  that  ]?  is  more 
likely  to  occur  at  the  beginning,  and  tS  in  the  middle 
or  at  the  end  of  words.  Either  can  be  represented 
in  English  by  th,  and  both  are  frequently  so  given 
in  the  printing  of  Anglo-Saxon;  they  will  be  so 
given  in  any  later  extracts  in  this  chapter.  Yet  it 
will  be  found  that  these  strange  characters  can  be 
learned  in  a  few  moments,  so  that  in  texts  where 
they  occur  they  are  read  without  the  slightest 
perplexity. 

Next  we  become  aware  of  the  great  number  of 
obsolete  words,  compelling  us  to  use  the  dictionary, 
and  of  a  still  more  serious  difficulty  in  the  grammar. 
For  the  greatest  difference  between  the  Anglo-Saxon 
and  the  English  is  that  the  Anglo-Saxon  was  an 
inflected  language,  doing  by  change  in  the  forms  of 
words  what  the  English  does  by  prepositions,  etc. 
Hence  in  any  translation  we  are  driven  to  insert 
prepositions  in  parentheses  in  order  to  fill  out  the 


102  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

meaning.  Let  us  now  repeat  the  lines  with  the 
ancient  characters  transliterated,  and  a  literal  trans- 
lation interlined: 

Hwaet !  we  Gar-Dena       in  geardagum 

What!  we  (of  the)  Spear-Danes  in  yore-days 

theo'd-cyninga  thrym  gefrunen, 

(the)  people-kings     (the)    glory    have  heard, 

hu     tha    sethelingas  ellen    fremedon, 

how  the    princes  (their)  might  put  forth, 

Some  translators  render  this  "Hwset"  as  "Lo!"  or 
"Behold !"  which  disguises  the  vivid  racial  originality 
of  the  opening.  "What!"  as  an  exclamation,  is  as 
old  as  the  language  and  is  in  use  to-day.* 

"What!     Canst  thou  not  forbear  me  half  an  hour?" — 
Shakespeare,  "King  Henry  IV"  Part  II,  act  iv,  sc.  4, 
1.  240. 

In  general  it  may  be  said  that  the  most  literal 
translation  of  the  old  poem  is  the  best.  Translators 
seem  beset  to  dramatize  and  decorate  the  simple 
verses  to  make  them  like  the  English  of  later  days. 
When  we  read  that  the  "mariners"  "with  alacrity" 
climbed  on  the  ship,  or  that  the  road  or  floor  was 
"of  variegated  stone,"  we  know  we  are  far  from 
the  Anglo-Saxon;  when  another  tells  us  that  the 
terrible  sword-stroke  "burst  the  vertehrce,"  we  have 
lost  our  way  altogether.     The  Anglo-Saxon  poet 

*  It  will  be  ebserved  that  the  word  in  the  poem  is  hivat,  the  h  pre- 
ceding the  w,  as  we  are  taught  to  pronounce  it  in  our  word  what.  In 
all  similar  words  the  spelling  was  Iiw  in  early  Anglo-Saxon,  where  h  is 
always  a  strong  aspirate.  The  spelling  in  wh  is  not  found  before 
Layamon  in  the  thirteenth  century. 


ANGLO-SAXON   SPEECH  103 

knew  nothing  of  the  Latin  vertebra;  when  he  said 
that  the  sword-blow  ban-hringas  brcec,"  (the)  bone- 
rings  broke,"  or  "broke  the  bone-rings,"  we  can  do 
no  better  than  to  render  that  literally,  and  let  a 
note  explain  it.  In  fact,  there  is  nothing  so  dramatic 
as  the  bald  literalness  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  that 
brings  the  very  scene  before  us.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  we  are  not  more  literal  by  using  words  that 
have  become  hopelessly  obsolete.  Thus  some  elegant 
renderings  leave  one  with  a  feeling  of  bewilder- 
ment— a  sense  of  a  misty  reproduction  of  something 
that  we  can  almost  understand.  Where  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  words  are  dead  to  us,  we  can  only  give  the 
nearest  equivalents  in  modern  English,  and  are  so 
most  literal.  Sometimes  we  can  almost  read  the 
ancient  language  without  translation,  as  in  the 
following : 

Him  se    yldesta  andswarode. 
Him  the  eldest     answered, 

werodes  wisa  word-hord 

{of  the)   company  {the)  wise   {one)    {the)  word-hoard 
onleac. 
unlocked. 

The  word  "werodes"  is  obsolete,  but  ''yldesta"  is 
near  enough  to  "eldest" ;  and,  though  ''andswarode" 
seems  a  strange  way  to  spell  "answered,"  it  soon 
comes  to  seem  only  a  little  odd.  The  word  "wisa" 
is  better  rendered  as  the  "wise"  one,  than  by  the 
Latin-French  word,  the  "sage."  We  can  only  define 
a  "sage"  as  a  preeminently  "wise"  m.an.     To  "un- 


104  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

lock  the  word-hoard"  is  a  very  picturesque  expres- 
sion for  speaking  out  one's  thought. 

The  ordinary  student  who  has  not  time  or  inclina- 
tion for  the  study  of  Anglo-Saxon  will  find  it  most 
helpful  to  read  a  good  Anglo-Saxon  text  with  an 
English  translation,  either  interlined  or  printed  side 
by  side  with  the  original.  So  he  will  come  to  know 
something  of  the  far-off  origins  of  his  mother- 
tongue. 

Beowulf  starts  to  the  rescue  with  fourteen  chosen 
comrades.  Going  down  to  the  shore,  they  find  their 
ship  drawn  up  on  the  beach,  and,  stepping  upon 
the  prow,  push  off  the  "bound- wood"  (the  ship)  into 
the  waves. 

"Then,  most  like  a  bird,  the  foam-necked  ship  (flota, 
the  'floater')  wind-driven  sailed  over  the  deep  waves  of 
the  sea  till  that,  about  one  hour  of  the  second  day,  the 
twisted-stemmed  ship  had  sailed  over,  so  that  the  seamen 
saw  land,  the  sea-cliffs,  the  steep  mountains  shine,  the 
wide  headlands.  Then  was  the  ocean  voyage  at  an  end. 
Thence  quickly  up  the  Westerners  stepped  upon  the  plain; 
they  tied  the  sea-wood  (the  ship)  ;  they  let  down  their 
shirts  of  mail,  their  fighting-garb.  They  thanked  God 
because  the  wave-ways  were  (had  been)  made  easy  to 
them." 

Speedily  a  mounted  warrior,  the  beach-warden, 
brandishing  a  mighty  spear,  rides  up  and  challenges 
them ;  but,  learning  who  they  are,  he  allows  them  to 
pass,  and  points  out  the  way  to  the  high  hall  of 
Heorot.  They  advance  along  a  "stone-laid  way," 
their  coats  of  mail,  formed  of  steel-rings  deftly  in- 


ANGLO-SAXON    SPEECH  105 

terwoven,  "hand-locked,"  ringing  upon  them  as  they 
walked,  while  on  each  helmet  shone  the  image  of  a 
boar,  many-hued,  fire-hardened,  and  adorned  with 
gold,  that  kept  the  guard  of  life. 

Reaching  the  hall,  they  set  down  their  great 
shields,  hard  as  flint,  against  the  wall,  and  struck 
their  spears  of  gray  ash  (apparently  with  the  bark 
still  on  the  shaft)  into  the  ground,  where  they  stood 
like  a  grove.  To  the  challenge  of  the  warrior  who 
kept  the  door  Beowulf  replies  by  giving  his  name 
and  demanding  audience  of  the  king,  to  whom  alone 
he  will  make  known  his  errand.  He  is  soon  admitted 
within  the  hall,  where  the  king  Hrothgar,  with  his 
wife  and  daughter,  had  seats  on  the  dais  across  one 
end  of  the  hall,  while  through  the  length  of  the 
hall  stretched  the  long  tables,  carved  and  gilded, 
with  long  hearths  for  fire  between  them,  and  above 
them  openings  in  the  roof  for  the  smoke.  The 
tables  were  laden  with  boar's  flesh  and  venison  and 
cups  for  ale  and  mead.  Beowulf  tells  his  errand 
and  is  welcomed  to  the  feast.  A  bench  is  cleared 
for  him  and  his  companions,  "the  sons  of  the 
Geatas,"  to  "sit  close  together."  There  the  stout- 
hearted ones  went  and  sat.  A  thegn  waited  on  them 
as  they  feasted,  and  between  whiles  a  "scop"  (bard: 
literally,  a  shaper)  sang  with  clear  voice  in  Heorot. 
There  was  the  joy  of  warriors,  a  great  gathering 
of  Danes  and  Westerners. 

"Then  rose  the  laughter  of  heroes;  music  resounded; 
the  talk  was  joyous.    Wealtheow,  Hrothgar's  queen,  came 


106  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

forth.  Mindful  of  the  ties  of  kindred,  the  golden-wreathed 
lady  greeted  the  men  in  the  hall ;  passed  among  the  old 
and  the  young;  ....  until  it  befell  that  she,  the  neck- 
laced  queen,  bore  the  mead-cup  to  Beowulf.  She  greeted 
the  lord  of  the  Geatas,  and  thanked  God,  discreet  in  her 
words,  that  the  desire  of  her  heart  had  happened  to  her, 
that  she  might  find  any  earl  to  trust  for  relief  from 
troubles.  He,  the  fierce  warrior,  received  the  cup  from 
Wealtheow,  and  then,  prepared  for  war,  he  spake; 
Beowulf,  son  of  Ecgtheow,  said:  *I  this  thought  when  I 
set  out  on  the  deep,  and  trod  my  sea-boat's  deck  with  my 
band  of  men,  that  I  alone  would  work  the  will  of  your 
people,  or  would  sink  among  the  dead,  fast  in  the  foe's 
grasp;  I  shall  perform  an  earl's  valor,  or  in  this  mead- 
hall  abide  my  death.'  These  words,  the  Geat's  boast, 
liked  the  woman  well.  Gold-wreathed,  the  happy  people's- 
queen,  went  to  sit  beside  her  lord." 

Knowing  the  monster  to  be  invulnerable  to  all 
weapons,  Beowulf  lies  down  in  the  great  hall  at 
night  unarmed,  to  meet  the  foe  with  his  naked 
hands. 

"Grendel,  the  night-walker,  came  prowling  in  the  gloom 
of  night;  from  his  eyes  issued  a  hideous  light,  most  like 
to  fire." 

In  him  we  recognize  the  prototype  of  all  the 
giants,  ogres  and  goblins  of  old  English  folk-lore 
and  nursery  tales,  reminiscences,  doubtless,  of 
ancient  days  when  the  remnants  of  the  prehistoric 
men  still  lingered  in  desolate  places  around  the 
settlements  of  their  more  civilized  successors,  upon 
whose  homes  they  made  raids  from  time  to  time 
in  the  night,  when  darkness  and  terror  would  mag- 
nify their  size  and  strength,  and  imagination  would 


ANGLO-SAXON   SPEECH  107 

gather  around  them  all  elements  of  horror.  Of  this 
type  were  the  old  representations  of  the  devil,  as 
in  Bunyan's  Apollyon.  Grendel  comes  to  the  great 
hall  and  crashing  in  the  door,  seizes  one  of  Beowulf's 
sleeping  companions : 

"He  tore  him  irresistibly,  drank  the  blood  from  his 
veins,  and  swallowed  him  by  great  mouthfuls  till  he  had 
devoured  all  but  his  hands  and  feet." 

Then  Beowulf  seized  upon  the  monster  with  an 
unyielding  grip.  In  the  contest  "the  gilded  seats 
were  overthrown,"  the  great  hall  rocked  and  would 
have  fallen  but  that  it  was  "made  fast  with  iron 
bands."  At  length  Beowulf,  by  main  force,  wrenches 
off  the  arm  of  the  fiend,  who  flees  to  his  sea-cave 
to  die.  The  king  and  the  queen,  with  a  bevy  of 
maidens,  come  in  the  morning  rejoicing  greatly  to 
see  the  gory  arm — a  ghastly  trophy — hung  up  over 
the  dais.    A  great  feast  is  held  and  sagas  sung. 

But  Grendel's  mother,  a  death-spirit  of  the  furious 
sea,  comes  the  next  night  in  Beowulf's  absence  to 
avenge  her  son,  and  destroys  a  warrior,  Hrothgar's 
dearest  friend,  his  "shoulder-to-shoulder  man  in 
war." 

Beowulf  returning  finds  the  king  plunged  in  hope- 
less gloom,  and  learns  the  sad  story.  Then  the  young 
hero  becomes  the  counselor  of  the  aged  king. 

"Beowulf  spake,  the  son  of  Ecgtheow:  'Grieve  not, 
thou  wise  man !  Better  it  is  for  every  one  that  he  should 
avenge  his  friend  than  that  he  should  mourn  exceedingly. 
Each  one  of  us  must  abide  the  end  of  worldly  life.    Let 


108  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

him  who  may,  execute  justice  before  his  death;  that  will 
afterwards  be  best  for  the  warrior  when  he  no  longer 

lives This  day  have  thou  patience  of  every  loss, 

as  I  expect  from  thee.' " 

Then  the  hero,  with  his  little  band,  starts  out  to 
do  the  thing  of  which  he  has  spoken — to  "avenge 
his  friend."  He  tracks  the  monster  to  her  lair,  well 
known  and  dreaded  by  all  the  people  of  the  country- 
side. He  reaches  the  dread  gulf,  whose  waters  are 
encompassed  by  dark  trees  and  wolf -haunted  slopes, 
and  where,  from  time  to  time,  may  be  seen  the 
"wonder"  of  fire  burning  under  the  flood.  Leaving 
his  comrades,  Beowulf  plunges  into  the  black  waters, 
sinks  far  down  into  the  depths,  and  is  then  borne 
up  into  the  cave  under  the  sea,  where  alone  he  fights 
with  the  fiend.  His  sword  is  broken;  he  is  hurled 
back  upon  the  sand;  then,  in  the  instant  of  immi- 
nent death,  he  catches  sight  of  a  golden-hilted  sword 
of  the  giants  hanging  above  him  on  the  wall. 
Springing  to  his  feet,  he  seizes  this  and  strikes  so 
true  a  blow  that  the  demon  foe  falls  dead  at  his 
feet.  Spying  the  corpse  of  Grendel  lying  near,  he 
cuts  off  his  head,  and,  bearing  the  head  in  one  hand 
and  still  grasping  in  the  other  the  golden  hilt  of 
the  great  sword,  he  swims  back  through  the  blood- 
stained water  to  his  thegns,  who  have  given  him  up 
for  dead,  but  still  watch  loyally  upon  the  bank.  The 
head  of  Grendel  requires  the  strength  of  four  men 
to  carry  it  to  the  great  hall;  but  of  the  sword  the 
hilt  alone  is  left,  the  blade  having  melted  in  the 


ANGLO-SAXON   SPEECH  109 

poisonous  blood  of  the  demon,  "just  like  ice  when 
the  Father  looseneth  the  bands  of  frost."  With 
feasts  and  splendid  gifts,  Beowulf  is  sent  home  to 
Sweden  victorious.  Notable  is  the  quality  of  Hroth- 
gar's  presents  to  the  victor,  "a  mighty-valued 
sword,"  a  crested  helmet,  and  eight  splendidly 
caparisoned  horses, — a  warrior's  gifts. 

Soon  a  new  section  of  the  poem  begins.  Sixty 
years  later,  when  Beowulf  had  himself  become  king 
and  had  ruled  fifty  years,  a  fire-breathing  dragon 
starts  out  to  desolate  his  own  land.  The  gray-headed 
king,  with  all  the  courage  of  his  youth,  goes  forth 
to  deliver  his  people.  When  he  reaches  the  deep, 
dragon-haunted  dell,  he  sits  down  and  sings  his 
death-song, — all  the  deeds  of  his  life  since  he  was 
seven  years  old.  That  ended,  he  advances  down 
the  dell,  and  there,  with  his  back  to  the  rock,  and 
with  but  one  thegn,  Wiglaf,  who  has  dared  stand 
by  him,  he  fights  a  desperate  battle  with  the  dragon, 
called  in  the  old  poem  "the  Worm,"  a  snake-like 
monster  fifty  feet  in  length.  Beowulf  has  received 
a  deadly  wound,  but  still  fights  on  until,  at  last,  by 
one  good  blow  with  his  failing  strength,  he  cuts  the 
monster  in  twain. 

Then,  finding  that  the  venom  of  the  Worm  burned 
in  his  veins,  and  seeing  death  drawing  near,  he  bids 
the  faithful  Wiglaf  to  hasten  and  bring  out  the 
treasure,  gold  and  gems  and  a  wondrous  golden 
standard,  from  the  dragon's  den.  Looking  upon  the 
trophies,  he  exclaims, 


110  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

"I  thank  the  glorious  king  that,  ere  I  die,  I  have 
won  these  things  for  my  people,  have  paid  my  old 
life  for  them.  But  thou  supply  the  need  of  my 
folk.     I  may  no  longer  be  here." 

The  power  of  the  poem  is  that  it  presents  vividly 
what  in  the  sixth  to  the  seventh  century  after  Christ 
were  the  customs  and  ideals  of  the  people  from 
whom  the  English  are  descended.  The  original  lays 
seem  to  be  of  Scandinavian  origin,  but  the  com- 
pleted poem  was  made  by  some  English  poet  on 
English  soil,  and,  whether  with  or  without  direct 
intent,  so  molded  as  to  express  the  English  ideals, 
and  to  some  degree  the  English  customs,  of  the 
writer's  own  day. 

The  civilization  depicted,  though  barbaric,  was 
civilization.  The  people  of  the  day  had  their  great 
halls,  built  strongly  of  wood,  braced  and  strength- 
ened by  iron,  and  arranged  for  what  to  them  was 
splendid,  and  was  surely  sumptuous,  feasting.  They 
had  their  laws  of  hospitality,  free  and  generous. 
Gradations  of  rank  were  marked  by  position  at  the 
table.  Noble  women  had  seats  of  honor  on  the 
dais.  The  queen  passes  the  cup  to  the  honored 
guest,  receives  his  promise  to  slay  the  dragon,  and 
honors  him  with  her  gracious  approval.  Later  king 
and  queen  join  in  rejoicing  and  in  congratulating 
the  hero  upon  his  victory.  Yet  the  barbaric  touch 
appears  in  the  fact  that  the  arm  torn  from  the 
monster,  with  its  stains  of  blood  and  its  horrible 
claws,  is  hung  cheerfully  over  the  dais  to  gladden 


ANGLO-SAXON   SPEECH  111 

the  triumphal  feast.  Gold  and  gems  and  costly- 
armor,  whencesoever  obtained,  are  familiar  objects. 
The  home-life  of  the  people  is  shown  not  only  in 
the  great  royal  hall  but  in  the  dwellings  clustered 
around  it,  "each  with  its  garden."  Sympathy  with 
the  sea  in  all  its  moods  of  brightness,  gloom,  or 
storm,  pervades  the  poem.  All  its  action  is  on  or 
near  the  ocean. 

But  beyond  all  these  particulars  is  the  lofty  type 
of  heroism  displayed.  The  hero  goes  forth  not  for 
plunder,  not,  like  the  knights  errant  of  chivalry, 
for  mere  "adventure."  One  writer  has  called  Beo- 
wulf a  "soldier  of  fortune."  Never  was  designation 
more  inappropriate.  He  is  seeking  no  prizes  or 
rewards  of  valor,  but  all  the  splendid  gifts  bestowed 
upon  him  he  gives  with  princely  generosity  to  his 
king  and  queen  on  reaching  his  home-land.  Nor 
does  he  fight  only  in  defense  of  home  and  country. 
His  own  land  was  not  invaded,  his  own  people  not 
in  danger.  It  is  the  hearing  of  unavenged  wrong 
across  the  sea  that  calls  him  forth  from  his  home, 
and  his  native  shore,  to  deliver  sufferers  to  whom 
he  is  unknown.  He  takes  full  measure  of  the  peril 
he  is  to  meet,  and  lies  down  in  the  dark  night  in 
the  demon-haunted  hall  to  wait  with  bare  hands 
the  coming  of  the  grisly  foe  whom  steel  can  not 
touch.  Similar  is  the  calm  courage  with  which  he 
afterwards  leaves  his  armed  comrades  on  the  rocks, 
and  dives  into  the  black  water  to  meet  all  alone 
the  death-demon  in  the  ocean  cave.    To  the  daunt- 


112  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

less  resolution  is  joined  the  swift  resourcefulness 
with  which  the  fallen  hero,  when  smitten  down  with 
broken  sword,  springs  up  from  the  sand,  sees  and 
snatches  from  the  wall  the  giant's  sword,  so  con- 
quering when  all  had  seemed  lost.  Not  less  grand 
is  the  self-devotion  of  the  aged  king,  not  weakened 
by  any  idleness,  luxury  or  vice  during  his  fifty 
years  of  royal  rule,  going  forth  for  his  people  to 
what  he  plainly  feels  may  be  his  last  battle.  We 
see  here  the  premonition  of  England's  "grand  old 
men,"  like  Palmerston,  Gladstone,  and  many  an- 
other, who  served  their  country  to  their  latest  breath, 
and  scarcely  knew  the  meaning  of  "declining  years." 
When  the  last  dread  battle  has  been  fought  and 
won,  and  the  victor,  mortally  stricken,  lies  facing 
death,  there  is  the  calm  recital  of  his  life-endeavor 
and  life-achievement.  Of  the  scenery  of  this  and 
kindred  poems  it  is  remarked : 

"Landscape  painting  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  poems  is 
adapted  to  men  of  this  stamp.  Their  souls  delight  in  the 
bleak  boreal  climes ;  the  north  wind,  frost,  hail,  howling 
tempests,  and  raging  seas  recur  as  often  in  this  literature 
as  blue  waves  and  sunlit  blossoms  in  the  writings  of  men 
to  whom  those  exquisite  marvels  are  familiar.  The  de- 
scriptions are  all  short,  save  when  they  refer  to  ice  or 
snow  or  the  song  of  the  sea.  The  Anglo-Saxon  poets 
dwell  on  such  sights  complacently;  their  tongue  is  then 
unloosed." 

— JussERAND,  "A  Literary  History  of  the  English  People," 
vol.  i,  p.  55. 

Scholars  dwell  with  delight  on  the  poems  ascribed 


ANGLO-SAXON   SPEECH  113 

to  Csedmon,  who  died  in  680,  and  who  was  said 
to  have  been  taught  the  art  of  song  by  a  heavenly 
vision,  and  whose  paraphrase  of  Genesis  and  Exodus, 
with  the  story  of  the  RebelHon  of  the  Angels  and 
the  Fall  of  Man,  has  led  many  to  call  him  the 
precursor  of  Milton;  on  the  poems  of  Cynewulf 
(750-825),  the  roistering  minstrel  at  the  courts  of 
nobles  in  his  youth,  and,  after  his  thrilling  conver- 
sion to  Christianity,  the  author  of  numerous  poems 
of  power  and  beauty.  These  poems  and  many 
spirited  fragments  of  song  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
period  can  not  now  be  read  by  the  English-speaking 
man  without  thorough  study  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
grammar  and  dictionary.  But  they  are  well  worth 
reading,  if  only  in  English  translations.* 

The  meter  of  the  poems  depended  not  upon  the 
rime  (which  was  only  introduced  from  the  French 
after  the  Norman  Conquest),  but  upon  accent  and 
alliteration.  Accent  is  still  the  determining  element 
in  English  poetry,  since  we  have  lost  the  "quantity" 
of  the  Greek  and  Latin  and  some  modern  languages, 
in  which  a  "long"  vowel  actually  occupies  more  time 
in  utterance  than  a  "short"  vowel.  Alliteration,  the 
beginning  of  several  successive  words  with  the  same 
consonant  or  vowel,  is  well  illustrated  in  the  well- 
known  line, 

"Up  a  high,  /all  Ae  Aeaved  a  huge  round  stone." 
Alliteration  appears  now  but  sparingly  in  English 

*  Among  the  best  brief  reviews  of  this  ancient  literature  is  Brooke's 
"History    of   English   Literature   from    the   Beginning   to   the   Norman 
Conquest." 
8 


114  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

poetry,  but  was  an  essential  element  of  Anglo-Saxon 
verse. 

"The  metre  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  poems  is  ...  .  unlike 
any  modern  metre  without  rhyme,  and  without  any  fixed 
number  of  syllables.  Its  essential  elements  were  accent 
and  alliteration.  Each  verse  was  divided  into  two  half- 
verses  by  a  pause,  and  has  four  accented  syllables,  while 
the  number  of  unaccented  syllables  is  indifferent.  The 
two  accented  syllables  of  the  first  half,  and  one  of  the 
accented  syllables  in  the  second  half,  begin  with  the  same 
consonant,  or  with  vowels  which  were  generally  different 
from  one  another.  This  is  the  normal  rule ;  but  to  give  a 
greater  freedom  there  is  often  only  one  alliterative  letter 

in  the  first  half-verse The  emphatic  words  in  which 

the  chief  thought  lay  were  accented  and  alliterated,  and 
probably  received  an  additional  force  by  the  beat  of  the 
hand  upon  the  harp.  All  the  poetry  was  sung,  and  the 
poet  could  alter  as  he  sung  the  movement  of  the  verse. 
But,  however  the  metre  was  varied,  it  was  not  varied 
arbitrarily.  It  followed  clear  rules,  and  all  its  develop- 
ments were  built  on  the  simple  original  type  of  four 
accents  and  three  alliterated  syllables." 
— Stopford  a.  Brooke,  "English  Literature,"  ch.  i,  p.  4. 

The  following  line  from  the  poem  of  Beowulf 
illustrates  the  meter : 

Flood  under  /oldan — nis  thset  /eor  heonon. 
i^lood  under  /ield — not  is  that  /ar  hence. 

A  person  who  can  not  understand  one  of  these 
poems  except  with  a  translation  can  often  follow 
the  alliteration  and  accent,  and  catch  what  has  been 
called  the  "marching  music"  of  this  ancient  verse. 


ANGLO-SAXON   SPEECH  115 

Anglo-Saxon  prose  seems  to  have  begun  some- 
what late.  The  devout  and  learned  Bseda,  "the 
Venerable  Bede"  (673-735),  who  spent  his  quiet 
life  in  the  monastery  of  Jarrow  teaching  six  hun- 
dred pupils,  not  only  Englishmen,  but  pilgrims  from 
all  parts  of  Europe,  wrote  chiefly  in  Latin,  though 
he  devoted  his  last  days,  and  almost  his  last  hour, 
to  a  translation  of  the  Gospel  of  John  into  the 
English  tongue.  This  work  has  unfortunately  been 
lost.  He  wrote  in  Latin  the  "Ecclesiastical  History 
of  the  English  Nation,"  Vv^hich  King  Alfred,  long 
afterward,  translated  into  the  English  of  his  day. 

The  native  English  prose  begins  with  King  Alfred 
(849-901). 

"Alfred  changed  the  whole  front  of  our  literature. 
Before  him  England  possessed  in  her  own  tongue  one 
great  poem  and  a  train  of  ballads  and  battle-songs.  Prose 
she  had  none.  The  mighty  roll  of  the  prose  books  that 
fill  her  libraries  begins  with  the  translations  of  Alfred, 
and  above  all  with  the  chronicle  of  his  reign." 
— Green,  "History  of  the  English  People,"  vol.  I,  bk.  i, 

ch.  3,  p.  107. 

In  ways  that  we  can  not  trace  there  had  arisen  a 
simple  prose  style,  probably  that  of  common  speech, 
improved  by  the  selective  use  of  the  scholarly  king. 
Alfred  was  easily  the  foremost  writer  of  his  rude 
age;  and  every  great  writer,  while  he  must  use  the 
language  of  the  people  whom  he  addresses  in  order 
to  be  understood  by  them,  at  the  same  time  molds 
the  speech  he  uses  by  the  influence  of  his  own  per- 


116  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

sonality.  He  chooses  now  a  word  smoother  in 
sound,  again  one  more  vigorous  or  delicate  in  mean- 
ing, then  one  more  lofty  in  import  or  more  familiar 
in  use,  as  the  case  may  require.  In  the  construc- 
tion of  clauses  or  sentences  he  chooses  that  arrange- 
ment of  words  which  seems  to  him  most  clear, 
felicitous  and  euphonious,  or  most  vigorous  and 
effective. 

Alfred  translated  from  the  Latin  into  the 
"Englisc"  of  his  day,  or  the  Anglo-Saxon,  the  "Con- 
solation of  Philosophy"  {De  Consolatione  Phi- 
losophice)  of  Boethius,  the  "Pastoral"  of  Pope 
Gregory,  the  "Universal  History"  of  Orosius,  and 
Baeda's  "Ecclesiastical  History"  of  England.  Often 
in  the  midst  of  his  translations  he  would  enter 
matter  of  his  own — an  account  of  new  discoveries  in 
the  North,  his  own  theories  of  government,  or  most 
devout  reflections  on  the  majesty  and  goodness  of 
God. 

The  language  used  by  Alfred  and  his  contem- 
poraries was  by  them  definitely  called  Englisc, — 
English.  It  is  so  true  to  the  modern  type  that,  with 
some  help  from  a  glossary,  it  may  be  read  without 
much  difficulty  by  the  English-speaking  man  of  the 
present  day.  This  may  be  shown  by  the  following 
extract*  from  Alfred's  record  of  the  explorations 
of  a  traveler  named  Ohther  along  the  coasts  of  the 
White  Sea,  where  dwelt  a  people  called  the  Beormas : 


*  With   interlinear   translation  as   given  by   Marsh,   "Origin  and  His- 
tory of  the  English  Language,"  lect.  iii,  pp.   125,-126. 


ANGLO-SAXON   SPEECH  117 

Fela    spella*  him  ssedon         tha  Beormas,  aegther  ge 
Many  tales      him  said  (told)  the  Beormas,  both 

of  hyra  agenum  lande,  ge     of  thsera  lande 
of  their  own        land,    and  of  the      lands 

the    ymb       hy       utan    waeron;  ac    he  nyste       hwaet 
that  around  them  about  were;      but  he  wist-not  what 

thaes  sothes  waer,   forthaem  he  hit  sylf  ne    geseah. 

(of)  the  sooth    was,  for-that    he  it     self  not  saw. 

Tha  Finnas  him  thuhte,     and  tha  Beormas  spraecon 
The  Finns     him  thought,  and  the  Beormas  spoke 

neah  an     getheode.      Swithost    he  for       thyder, 
nigh   one  language.     Chiefiiest  he  fared  thither, 

to-eacan  thses  landes  sceawunge,   for  thsem 
besides      the     land's   seeing,  for  the 

hors-hwaelum,f  forthaem  hi      habbath  swythe  aethele  ban 
horse-whales,    for-that  they  have       very      noble    bones 

on 

in 

hyra  tothum;  tha      teth     hy      brohton  sume 
their  teeth;      these  teeth  they  brought  some 

thsem        cyninge;  and  hyra   hyd    bith  swythe  god     to 
{to)  the  king;         and  their  hide  is       very       good  for 

scip-rapum. 
ship-ropes. 

The  English  or  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  begun 
in  Alfred's  time,  and  probably  under  his  personal 
superintendence,  extends  from  the  year  891  to  11 54. 
Of  this  the  most  conflicting  views  have  been  held 
by  different  writers.    Milton  says : 

*  We  still  speak  of  the  magician's  spelt,  and  we  have  the  word  com- 
pounded in  gospel,"  which  is  the  Anglo-Saxon  god+jps/,  the  "good 
story."  t  Walruses. 


118  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

"Such  things  what  were  they  more  worthy  to  record 
than  the  ward  of  kites  and  crows,  flocking  and  fighting 
in  the  air  ?" 

Marsh,  in  his  "Origin  and  History  of  the  EngHsh 
Language,"  writes: 

"The  Saxon  Chronicle  is  a  dry  chronological  record, 
noting  in  the  same  lifeless  tone  important  and  trifling 
events,  without  the  slightest  tinge  of  dramatic  color,  of 
criticism  in  weighing  evidence,  or  of  judgment  in  the 

selection  of  the  facts  narrated I  know  not  where 

else  to  find  a  series  of  annals  which  is  so  barren  of  all 
human  interest,  and  for  all  purposes  of  real  history  so 
worthless."* 

On  the  other  hand.  Green,  in  his  "History  of  the 
EngHsh  People,"  remarks:! 

"It  seems  likely  that  the  King's  (Alfred's)  rendering  of 
Baeda's  history  gave  the  first  impulse  toward  the  com- 
pilation of  what  is  known  as  the  English  or  Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle,  which  was  certainly  thrown  into  its  present 
form  during  his  reign.  The  meager  lists  of  the  kings  of 
Wessex  and  the  bishops  of  Winchester,  which  had  been 
preserved  from  older  times,  were  roughly  expanded  into 
a  national  history  by  insertions  from  Bseda;  but  it  is  when 
it  reaches  the  reign  of  Alfred  that  the  Chronicle  suddenly 
widens  into  the  vigorous  narrative,  full  of  life  and  origi- 
nality, that  marks  the  gift  of  a  new  power  to  the  English 
tongue.  Varying  as  it  does  from  age  to  age  in  historic 
value,  it  remains  the  first  vernacular  history  of  any  Teu- 
tonic people,  and,  save  for  the  Gothic  translation  of  the 
Ulfilas,  the  earliest  and  most  venerable  monument  of 
Teutonic  prose." 

A  description  of  the  way  in  which  the  Chronicle 
was  written  shows  how  these  conflicting  views  be- 

*  Lect.  iii,   p.    103.  T  Bk.   i,  ch.   3,   p.    107. 


ANGLO-SAXON   SPEECH  119 

came  possible.  A  marginal  space  on  the  left  of  the 
page  was  ruled  off  by  a  perpendicular  line.  Hori- 
zontal lines  divided  the  page  into  sections,  and  in 
the  upper  left-hand  corner  of  each  rectangle  the 
number  of  a  year  was  written.  Then  the  scribe 
would  record  anything  he  saw  fit  to  chronicle.  As 
people  depended  for  the  most  part  upon  memory 
for  particulars,  only  some  striking  event,  as  the 
death  of  a  king,  a  storm,  or  a  comet  would  have 
its  date  fixed.  Memory  would  supply  the  rest,  as 
long  as  people  cared  to  remember.    Jusserand  says  :* 

"He  (the  chronicler)  writes  as  a  recorder,  chary  of 
words.  The  reader's  feelings  will  be  moved  by  the  deeds 
registered,  not  by  the  words  used.  Of  kings  the  chronicler 
will  often  say,  'he  was  killed,'  without  any  observation: 
'And  King  Osric  was  killed  ....  And  King  Selric  was 
killed '  Why  say  more  ?  It  was  an  everyday  occur- 
rence, and  had  nothing  curious  about  it.  But  a  comet  is 
not  seen  every  day;  a  comet  is  worth  describing;  '678. — 
In  this  year  the  star  (called)  comet  appeared  in  August, 
and  shone  for  three  months  every  morning  like  sunbeam. 
And  bishop  Wilfrith  was  driven  from  his  bishopric  by 
King  Ecgferth.'  We  are  far  from  the  art  of  Gibbon  or 
Carlyle.  Few  monuments,  however,  are  more  precious 
than  those  old  annals ;  for  no  people  in  Europe  can  pride 
itself  on  having  chronicles  so  ancient  written  in  its 
national  language." 

Since  the  writing  of  the  Chronicle  extended  over 
more  than  two  and  a  half  centuries,  it  mirrors  quite 
faithfully  the  changes  in  the  written  language  within 
that  time,  and  the  later  portions  can  be  somewhat 

*  "A  Literary  History  of  the  English  People  from  the  Origins  to 
the  Renaissance,"  bk.  i,  ch.  Si  p.  87- 


120  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

easily  read  by  the  modern  English-speaking  man 
by  the  aid  of  a  glossary. 

The  long  struggle  against  the  "Danes,"  or  North- 
men, within  England  and  without,  lasting  from 
Alfred's  day  to  the  very  year  of  the  Norman  in- 
vasion, gave  Uttle  opportunity  for  literature,  and 
the  disturbed  conditions  following  the  Norman  Con- 
quest were  not  more  favorable. 

The  poem  entitled  the  "Brut"  (Brutus),  a  metrical 
Chronicle  of  Britain,  by  Layamon,  is  assigned  to 
about  the  year  1200,  It  contains  somewhat  more 
than  32,000  lines.  The  poem  exists  in  two  manu- 
scripts, of  which  the  earlier  appears  to  belong  to 
the  early  part  of  the  thirteenth  century  (not  far 
from  1200  A.  D.)  and  is  believed  to  be  identical 
with  the  original  work,  except  for  occasional  omis- 
sion of  lines  by  the  copyist,  leaving  some  break  in 
the  sense.  The  other  manuscript,  believed  to  be 
about  half  a  century  later,  makes  many  changes  of 
the  original  words  for  later  forms,  and  sometimes 
omits  many  lines,  evidentl}'-  by  design,  as  the  taste 
of  the  copyist  led  him  to  choose.  In  the  57,000 
verses  of  the  two  texts,  less  than  one  hundred  Latin 
or  Norman  words  have  been  found;  in  the  32,000 
lines  of  older  manuscript  less  than  fifty.  Yet  Laya- 
mon wrote  almost  a  century  and  a  half  after  the 
Norman  Conquest, — a  fact  showing  how  very  slow 
the  mass  of  the  people  were  to  adopt,  even  in  part, 
the  language  of  their  conquerors.  French  and  En- 
glish subsisted  side  by  side,  French  as  the  language 


ANGLO-SAXON   SPEECH  121 

of  the  nobility  and  gentry,  of  the  civil  officers  and 
the  courts  of  law,  Anglo-Saxon  English  as  the  lan- 
guage of  the  common  people.  At  the  same  time 
Latin  remained,  as  it  did  for  centuries  after,  the 
distinctive  language  of  the  learned.  Layamon  uses 
chiefly  the  Anglo-Saxon  alliterative  verse,  but  often 
intermingles  riming  lines  in  the  French  style,  in  this 
way  showing  that  the  French  influence  was  affecting 
his  versification,  though  not  his  diction. 

He  adopts  from  the  French  chronicler,  Wace,  an 
ancient  legend  that  Brutus,  the  great-grandson  of 
^neas,  was  the  founder  of  the  English  race.  Hence 
he  begins  his  narrative  with  the  siege  of  Troy.  He 
treats  as  English  all  who  ever  lived  in  England, 
celebrating  the  exploits  of  the  British  kings  Cad- 
wallader,  Uther,  and  Arthur  as  cheerfully  as  those 
of  their  Anglo-Saxon  conquerors.  In  his  language 
many  of  the  old  Anglo-SaxQn  inflections  are  re- 
tained, but  the  syntax  of  his  poems  so  nearly  ap- 
proaches that  of  modern  English  that,  as  Marsh 
observes,  "no  previous  grammatical  study  is  re- 
quired to  read  it." 

The  Anglo-Saxon  inflections  are  beginning  to 
disappear,  and  more  rapidly  in  flie  later  of  the  two 
texts;  the  preposition  of,  for  instance,  is  used  with 
the  genitive,  or  with  the  stem-form  of  the  noun  in 
place  of  the  genitive ;  also,  the  modern  English  plural 
in  s  has  become  frequent.  The  transformation  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  hw  to  the  modern  English  zvh  in 
such  words  as  what,  etc.,  appears  for  the  first  time  in 


122  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

Layamon.  Another  important  novelty  of  his  style 
is  the  use  of  the  auxiliaries  shall  and  will  precisely 
as  in  modern  English. 

A  fairly  good  idea  of  his  verse  may  be  obtained 
from  his  description  of  the  birth  of  King  Arthur, 
as  given  in  the  following  lines : 

The  time  com  the  wes  icoren : 
The  time  came  that  was  chosen: 

tha  wes  Arthur  iboren. 
then  was  Arthur  born. 

Sone  swa  he  com  an  eorthe, 

(So)  soon  as  he  came  on  earth, 

aluen*  hine  iuengen, 
elves  him  received, 

heo  bigolen  that  child 

they  enchanted  that  child 

mid  galdere  swithe  stronge. 
with  magic  most  strong. 

heo  yeuen  him  mihte 
they  gave  him  might 

to  beon  bezst  aire  cnihten; 
to  he  best  (of)  all  knights; 

heo  yeuen  him  an  other  thing, 

they  gave  him  another  thing, 

that  he  scolde  beon  riche  king; 
that  he  should  be  (a)  rich  king; 

heo  yiuenf  him  that  thridde, 
they  gave  him  that  third, 

that  he  scolde  longe  libben. 

that  he  should  long  live. 

*  An  instance  of  the  indiscriminate  use  of  u  and  z',  as  also  in  later 
lines,  as  yeuen  for  yeven,  etc.;  reading  this  word  alven  it  is  not  so 
very   unlike  elves. 

t  This  is  a  variant  form  of  yeuen  that  occurs  frequently  in  Layamon, 


ANGLO-SAXON    SPEECH  123 

heo  yifen*  him,  that  kine-bern, 
they  gave  him,  that  child, 

custen  swithe  gode, 
gifts  most  good, 

that  he  wes  mete-custi 
that  he  was  (most)  generous 

of  alle  quikemonnen. 

of  all  living'];  men. 

this  the  alue  him  yef, 
this  the  elves  him  gave, 

and  al  swa  that  cild  ithae. 
and  all  so  that  child  thrived. 

The  poem  called  the  "Ormulum"  is  almost  exactly 
contemporary  with  Layamon's  "Brut,"  dating  not 
far  from  1200  A.  D.  It  was  written  by  an  English 
Augustinian  monk,  Orm  or  Ormin,  who  says  in  his 
opening  lines : 

Thiss  hoc  iss  nemmned  Orrmulum 
Forrthi  thatt  Orrm  itt  wrohhte. 

The  book  is  interesting  for  its  peculiar  system  of 
spelling,  every  consonant  being  doubled  after  a  short 
vowel,  as  may  be  shown  by  italicizing  the  doubled 
consonants  in  the  lines  above  quoted.    Thus : 

Thii-^  boc  iss  nemmnedd  Orrmulum 
Forrthi  thatt  Orrm  itt  wrohhte. 

This,  is,  it,  and  that,  for  instance,  and  the  author's 
own  name,  Orm,  were  spelled  in  his  day  as  now, 
but  he  doubled  the  consonant  in  each  case  to  show 


•  This  is  a  variant  form  of  yeuen  that  occurs  frequently  in  Layamon. 
t  Quick  in  the  sense   of   "living"   is   familiar   in  Scriptural   use:    "the 
Judge  of  quick  and  dead." 


124  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

that  the  preceding  vowel  was  short.  On  the  con- 
trary, boc,  with  but  one  final  consonant,  had  the 
vowel  long,  and  was  pronounced  boc.  To  this  sys- 
tem of  spelling  Orm  attached  the  greatest  impor- 
tance, observing  it  carefully  throughout  the  book 
and  enjoining  its  observance  upon  all  who  should 
ever  copy  it.  Thus  we  see  that  a  reform  of  English 
spelling  was  instituted  at  least  seven  hundred  years 
ago.  But  spelling-reform  seems  to  have  been  no 
more  popular  then  than  in  the  centuries  since,  for 
there  is  no  evidence  that  the  poem  was  ever  copied 
at  all,  only  one  manuscript  being  known  to  be  in 
existence.  Evidently  the  English  people  did  not 
take  kindly  to  the  idea  of  spelling  iss  and  itt,  and 
overloading  with  other  superfluous  consonants.  This 
manuscript  contains  twenty  thousand  verses,  ap- 
parently but  a  small  part  of  the  original  poem.  The 
Anglo-Saxon  alliteration  has  disappeared,  but  the 
Norman-French  rime  has  not  been  adopted,  the 
meter  thus  forming  a  kind  of  blank  verse.  Very 
few  words  of  Norman-French  origin  are  used,  while 
some  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  words  are  now  obsolete; 
but  on  the  whole  the  diction  is  very  clear  to  the 
modern  English  reader.  The  syntax  and  order  of 
words  are  so  near  present  usage  as  to  be  readily 
followed.  One  striking  peculiarity  is  that  the 
"Ormulum"  is  the  first  work  to  use  the  Scandinavian 
form  aren  (are)  as  the  present  indicative  plural  of 
the  verb  beoti,  be.  This  form,  then  rare,  has  now 
come  into  universal  use.     The  "Ormulum"   is  a 


ANGLO-SAXON   SPEECH  125 

paraphrase  of  Scripture,  possessing  no  special  lit- 
erary merit  as  a  poem,  but  interesting  as  marking 
one  step  in  the  transformation  of  Anglo-Saxon  into 
modern  English.  The  following  extract  will  show 
the  style  of  the  poem : 

Aftterr  thatt  tatt  te  Laferrd  Crist 
After  that  that  the  Lord  Christ 

Wass  cumenn  off  Egyppte 
Was  come  from  Egypt 

Inntill  the  land  off  Galileo, 
Into  the  land  of  Galilee, 

Till  Nazarsethess  chesstre  * 
To  Nazareth's  town, 

Thseraffterr  sayyth  the  Goddspellboc 
Thereafter  saith  the  Gospelbook 

Bilaef  he  thaer  well  lannge 
Remained  he  there  well  long 

Withth  hise  frendf  tatt  haffdenn  himm 
With  his  friends  that  had  him 

To  yemenn  &  to  gaetenn, 
To  keep  and  to  protect, 

Withth  Marye  thatt  hiss  moderr  wass 
With  Mary  that  his  mother  was 

&  mayydenn  thwerrt  ut  clene, 
And  maiden  throughout  clean, 

&  withth  Josjep  thatt  was  himm  sett 
And  with  Joseph  that  was  him  set 

To  fedenn  &  to  fosstrenn. 
To  feed  and  to  foster. 

*  Chestre,  "town,"  is  from  the  Latin  castra,  "camp";  somewhat  changed 
in  form  it  became  the  ending  of  many  proper  names:  as,  Dorchester, 
L,eicester,   etc. 

t  The  sign  of  the  plural  of  frend  is  omitted,  perhaps  by  error  of  the 
copyist. 


126  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

The  whole  of  the  thirteenth  century  and  the  first 
half  of  the  fourteenth  were  for  various  reasons  un- 
favorable to  literary  production.  One  official  docu- 
ment stands  out  as  very  notable. 

The  Proclamation  of  Henry  III  in  the  year  1258 
is  regarded  by  many  philologists  as  "the  first  speci- 
men of  English  as  contradistinguished  from  Semi- 
Saxon,"*  The  exact  date  of  this  document  is  posi- 
tively known,  while  the  dates  of  Layamon,  the 
"Ormulum,"  etc.,  are  more  or  less  conjectural.  The 
proclamation  is  very  short,  containing  (besides 
proper  names)  only  about  three  hundred  words  in 
all.  The  document  is  evidently  a  specimen  of  the 
English  generally  used  and  popularly  understood  at 
that  date,  so  that  it  could  be  sent  ''into  every  shire 
of  England  and  Ireland." 

The  text  of  a  portion  of  the  proclamation,  with  a 
literal  interlinear  translation,  is  as  follows : 

Henr',   thurgh    Codes  fultume  King  on  Engleneloande, 
Henry,  through  God's   grace       King  on  England, 

Ihoaverdd  on  Irloand,  duk'  on  Norm',  on  Aquitain', 

lord  on  Ireland,  duke  on  Normandy,  on  Aquitaine, 

and  eorl  on  Aniow,   send     igretinge    to  all  hise  halde, 
and  earl  on  Anjou,  sends  greetings  to  all  his     lieges, 

ilaerde    and  ilaewede  on  Huntendon'  schir'. 
clerical  and  lay  on  Huntingdonshire. 

Thaet  witen  ge  wel  alle,  thaet  we  willen  and  unnen 
That  know  ye  well  all,  that  we  will  and  grant 
(This) 


'  Marsh,  "Origin  and  History  of  the  English  Language,"  lect  v,  p.  191. 


ANGLO-SAXON   SPEECH  127 

thaet  thaet  ure  raedesmen,  alle  other  the  moare  dael  of 
that    that     our  councilors,  all    or        the  more     part  of 
{what) 

heom,    thaet  beoth  ichosen  thurgh    us  and  thurg      thaet 
them*   that    are       chosen  through  us  and  through  that 
(who) 

loandes  folk  on  ure  kuneriche,  habbeth  idon  and  shuUen 
land's     folk  on  our  kingdom,    have       done  and  shall 

don  in  the  worthnesse  of  Gode  and  on  ure  treowthe  for 
do    in  the  worthiness  of  God    and  on  our  truth        for 

the  freme  of  the  loande  thurg       the  besigte        of  than 
the  good    of  the  land      through  the  ordinance  of  the 

toforeniseide   redesmen    beo   stedefaest  and   ilestinde  in 
aforesaid         councilors  be     stedfast      and  lasting      in 

alle  thinge  a  buten  aende,  ....  and  for  thaet  we  willen, 
all    things  without  end,      ....  and  for  that    we  will, 

{because) 

thaet  this  beo  stedefaest  and  lestinde,  we  senden  gew 
that     this  be     stedfast       and   lasting,     we  send       you 

this  writ  open    iseined  with  ure  seel  to  halden  amanges 
this  writ  open*  sealed    with  our  seal  to  hold      among 

gew  ine  hord 

you   in    hoard 

And  al    on  tho  ilche    worden  is  isend  in  to  seurihce 
And  all  on  the  same  words     is  sent     into     every 

othre  shcire  ouer  al    thaer  kuneriche  on  Engleneloande 
other  shire     over  all  their    kingdom     on  England 

and  ek  in  tel  Irelonde. 
and  also  into  Ireland. 


*  It  is  worth  remarking  how  distinctively  English  are  certain  of 
these  expressions,  as  "the  more  part  of  them,"  instead  of  "the 
majority";  and  "writ  open  (open  writ),  and  how  much  more  expressive 
this  is  than  the  later  "letters  patent." 


128  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

Here  two  points  are  to  be  especially  observed : 

1.  The  language  of  the  proclamation,  as  regards 
the  words  it  contains — its  vocabulary — is  the  older 
English,  with  scarcely  a  touch  of  Norman  influence. 
The  Latin-Norman  word  "duke,"  for  instance,  is 
given  among  the  king's  titles,  as  a  necessary  official 
designation;  but  the  proclamation  does  not  speak 
of  "councilors,"  but  of  "redesmen"  or  "raedesmen," 
for  we  may  notice  here,  as  often  elsewhere,  the 
different  spellings  of  the  same  word  in  the  same 
document.  Many  words  now  obsolete  appear  for 
which  we  must  turn  to  an  Anglo-Saxon  dictionary ; 
as,  fultumc,  the  Anglo-Saxon  word  for  "help"' — 
"Henr',  thurgh  God's  fultume,  King,"  etc. — where 
a  modern  royal  proclamation  would  read,  "Henry, 
by  the  grace  of  God,  King,"  etc. 

A  number  of  the  words  are  strange  in  appearance 
merely  by  the  use  of  ^  or  y  as  a  participial  prefix 
(representing  the  Anglo-Saxon  participial  prefix 
^^-) ;  as,  (i) chosen,  {i)don,  {i)lestinde,  etc.  When 
we  once  observe  this,  we  recognize  ichosen  as  chosen, 
idon  as  done, — familiar  forms ;  while  isend  is  easily 
seen  to  be  sent,  and  ilesfinde  is  not  so  very  far 
from  lasting.  Notice  must  also  be  taken  of  the 
indiscriminate  use  of  u  for  v;  as  in  "aewriche," 
"aez^eriche,"  "every";  "ower,"  "oz^er,"  etc.  We 
observe,  also,  that  the  proclamation  frequently  uses 
(with  perfect  correctness)  the  relative  pronoun  that 
where  modern  English  would  prefer  who  or  which. 

2.  The  construction  of  sentences  is  no  longer 


ANGLO-SAXON   SPEECH  129 

Anglo-Saxon.  The  connection  of  words  in  this 
document  depends  not  upon  case-endings  or  other 
changes  of  form,  but  solely  upon  position.  This  is 
a  feature  distinctively  English.  Thus,  prepositions 
are  used  instead  of  case-endings  to  denote  the  rela- 
tions of  nouns.  The  usage  is  somewhat  different 
from  the  present;  as,  "King  on  Engleloand,"  etc., 
where  we  should  write  "King  of  England,"  etc.  Still, 
the  principle  of  connection  by  prepositions  has  be- 
come a  controlling  factor,  involving  a  definite  posi- 
tion of  the  words  in  the  sentence,  to  make  the  sense 
clear.  Hence,  the  order  of  the  words  is  very  nearly 
what  it  would  be  in  modern  English. 

"The  first  thing  that  strikes  us  in  the  aspect  of  this 
proclamation  is  a  structure  of  period  so  nearly  correspond- 
ing with  present  usage,  that,  as  the  above  translation 
shows,  it  is  easy  to  make  a  modern  English  version,  con- 
forming to  the  original  in  verbal  arrangement  and  syntax, 
and  yet  departing  very  little  from  the  idiom  of  our  own 
time.  The  positional  syntax  had  become  established;  and 
the  inflectional  endings  had  no  longer  a  real  value.  True, 
from  the  force  of  habit,  they  continued  long  in  use ;  .  .  .  . 
but  when  it  was  once  distinctly  felt  that  the  syntactical 
relations  of  words  had  come  to  depend  on  precedence 
and  sequence,  the  cases  and  other  now  useless  gram- 
matical signs  were  neglected,  confounded,  and  finally 
dropped 

"The  principle  that  the  grammatical  categories  of  the 
words  in  a  period  are  determined  by  their  relative  posi- 
tions is  the  true  characteristic  of  English  as  distinguished 
from  Saxon." 
— Marsh,  "Origin  and  History  of  the  English  Language" 

lect.  V,  p,  19. 


130  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

This  proclamation  of  Henry  III,  in  1258,  is  one 
of  the  standard  monuments  of  our  language,  and 
marks  the  watershed  between  Anglo-Saxon  and 
English. 

As  to  the  official  use  of  English,  it  is  interesting 
in  this  connection  to  note  its  steady  advance.  After 
the  Norman  Conquest,  the  oath  of  the  king  was 
regularly  pronounced  in  Latin;  but  at  the  beginning 
of  the  fourteenth  century  a  note  was  added  to  the 
Latin  form  of  the  oath,  providing  that  "if  the  king 
was  illiterate  he  was  to  take  the  oath  in  French." 
Henry  II  thus  took  the  coronation  oath  in  French 
in  1307.  But  in  1399  the  act  of  abdication  of 
Richard  II  was  read  first  in  Latin,  then  in  English. 
Henry  of  Lancaster  then  made  his  claim  to  the 
crown  in  English : 

"In  the  name  of  Fadir,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  I,  Henry 
of  Lancaster,  challenge  yis  (this)  Reume  (Realm)  of 
England." 

When  his  claim  was  allowed,  he  rendered  thanks 
in  English, 

"to  God  and  yowe  Spiritual  and  Temporal  and  all  the 
Astates  of  the  land." 

In  the  courts  either  French  or  Latin  long  con- 
tinued to  be  the  official  language,  though  about  this 
period  the  idiom  used  "shows  that  judges  and  advo- 
cates delivered  in  French  what  they  had  thought 
in  English."  In  the  year  1300  a  regulation  in  force 
at  Oxford  allowed  people  who  had  to  speak  in  a 


ANGLO-SAXON   SPEECH  131 

suit  *'to  express  themselves  in  any  language  gen- 
erally understood."*  At  length,  in  1352,  a  statute 
ordains  that  henceforward  all  pleas  shall  be  made  in 
English,  and  enrolled  in  Latin,  and  that  in  English 
law  courts  "the  French  language,  which  is  too 
unknown  In  the  said  realm,  shall  be  discontinued." 

The  rising  power  of  the  third  estate,  the  Com- 
mons, in  Parliament,  signally  manifested  when  they 
formally  joined  in  the  deposition  of  Richard  II  and 
the  placing  of  Henry  IV  upon  the  throne,  gave 
official  recognition  to  English  as  the  language  of 
the  common  people  until,  "in  1363,  the  Chancellor 
opened  the  session  of  Parliament  by  a  speech  in 
English,  the  first  ever  heard  in  Westminster."! 

Scholars  find  in  the  latter  part  of  the  thirteenth 
and  the  opening  of  the  fourteenth  century  many 
interesting  productions  and  fragments  showing  the 
general  progress  of  the  language,  but  otherwise  of 
little  importance.  The  "Chronicle  of  England," 
by  Robert  of  Gloucester,  who  flourished  about  the 
year  1300,  begins — ^like  that  of  Layamon — with 
the  siege  of  Troy,  and  extends  to  the  death  of 
Henry  III,  in  J-^t^^-,  but  has  not  Layamon's  poetical 
merit.  Its  opening  lines  prove  Robert  to  have  had 
the  sturdy  patriotism  of  the  typical  Englishman : 

"Engelond  ys  a  wel  god  lond,  ich  wene  of  eche  lond  best, 
Y  set  in  the  ende  of  the  world,  as  al  in  the  West. 
The  see  goth  hym  al  a  boute,  he  stont  as  an  yle.":j: 


*  Jusserand,  "Literary  History  of  the  English  People,"  vol.  i,  p.  239. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  242. 

t  It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  this  poet  refers  to  "Engelond,"  or 
the  "lond"  by  he  or  him,  where  we  should  use  "it,"  or  in  personification, 
"she"  or  "her." 


132  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

In  his  writings  nearly  two  hundred  and  fifty  years 
after  the  Norman  Conquest,  the  proportion  of 
Norman-French  words  does  not  exceed  four  or  five 
per  cent,  though  some  of  these  appear  for  the  first 
time  in  his  works.  Despite  the  scholarly  interest 
in  these  and  other  works  and  fragments,  it  may 
almost  be  said  that  there  is  no  English  literature 
from  the  time  of  Layamon  and  Orm  (about 
I200  A.  D.)  to  the  time  of  Chaucer — a  period  of 
one  hundred  and  fifty  years.  Writing  there  was — 
enough  of  it,  such  as  it  was — sufficing  to  keep  the 
English  pen  in  play,  though  not  especially  to  exalt 
the  mind.  That  is,  the  language  was  progressing, 
though  literature  was  not.  There  was  matter  for 
the  people  to  read,  to  keep  the  popular  intellect 
awake,  and  to  record  the  insensible  changes  of  the 
language.  In  his  article  "English  Literature"  in  the 
"Encyclopedia  Britannica,"  Dr.  Henry  Bradley  says : 

"The  extent  and  character  of  the  literature  produced 
during  the  first  half  of  the  14th  century  (1300-1350) 
indicate  that  the  literary  use  of  the  native  tongue  was 
no  longer,  as  in  the  preceding  age,  a  mere  condescension 
to  the  needs  of  the  common  people.  The  rapid  disuse  of 
French  as  the  ordinary  medium  of  intercourse  among  the 
middle  and  higher  ranks  of  society,  and  the  consequent 
substitution  of  English  for  French  as  the  vehicle  of 
school  instruction,  created  a  widespread  demand  for 
vernacular  reading.  The  literature  which  arose  in  answer 
to  this  demand,  though  it  consisted  mainly  of  translations 
or  adaptations  of  foreign  words,  yet  served  to  develop  the 
appreciation  of  poetic  beauty,  and  to  prepare  an  audience 
in  the  near  future  for  a  poetry  in  which  the  genuine 
thought  and  feeling  of  the  nation  were  to  find  expression." 


V 

CHAUCERIAN  ENGLISH 

Contemporaries  of  Chaucer 


V 

CHAUCERIAN  ENGLISH 

Contemporaries  of  Chaucer 

England  had  been  engaged  in  conflict  at  home 
and  wars  abroad.  Especially  had  the  French  wars 
of  the  reign  of  Edward  III  brought  glory  to  the 
English  arms  and  had  united  Norman  noble  and 
Saxon  yeoman  as  never  before.  A  historian  re- 
marks of  the  English  victory  over  the  French  at 
Crecy : 

"It  was  a  victory  of  foot  soldiers  over  horse  soldiers — 
of  a  nation  in  which  all  ranks  stood  heartily  together 
over  one  in  which  all  ranks  except  that  of  the  gentry 
were  despised." 
— Gardiner,  "A  Student's  History  of  England,"  vol.  I, 

ch.  15,  p.  242. 

But  these  wars,  however  gratifying  to  the  national 
pride,  had  sadly  wasted  the  lives  of  Englishmen. 
The  Great  Plague,  known  as  the  "Black  Death," 
had  swept  away  half  the  population  of  the  British 
Isles.  With  the  scarcity  of  laborers,  prices  of  labor 
had  risen,  which  oppressive  enactments  strove  in 
vain  to  stay.  All  this  had  produced  that  wide  in- 
dustrial unrest  soon  to  culminate  in  the  Peasants* 
Revolt  of  1 38 1.  Such  conditions  stimulate  popular 
thought  and  inquiry  as  to  the  foundations  of  right 

135 


136  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

and  wrong,  of  social  and  industrial  relations,  the 
relations  of  the  individual  with  church  and  govern- 
ment, and  such  arousal  of  thought  is  sure  to  produce 
some  vigorous  literature. 

So,  in  the  latter  half  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
a  cycle  of  eminent  writers  appeared,  as  in  all  ages 
great  authors  have  appeared,  not  as  lonely  stars,  but 
in  constellations  of  literature,  the  same  political  and 
social  conditions  stimulating  many  minds  at  once, 
bringing  leaders  to  the  front  and  preparing  for  them 
a  constituency  of  eager  readers,  while  each  leader 
rouses  others  to  emulous  activity,  perhaps  in  very 
different  lines,  but  all  under  the  influence  of  the 
one  pervading  impulse. 

Thus  in  one  half -century  appeared  Langland 
(1330-1400),  Chaucer  (1340-1400),  Gower  (1330- 
1408),  and  Wyclif  (1334-1384).  These  dates  are 
in  some  cases  conjectural,  but  are  known  not  to 
vary  far  from  the  real,  thus  bringing  the  mature 
life  of  these  leaders  within  the  period  of  half  a 
century  (1350  to  1400),  while  their  literary  activity 
falls  for  the  most  part  within  a  single  generation. 

"Piers  Plowman"  is  the  name  commonly  given 
to  an  allegorical  poem,  more  fully  entitled  "The 
Vision  of  WilHam  Concerning  Piers  the  Plowman." 
The  reputed  author,  William  Langland,  or  Lang- 
lande,  is  portrayed  in  the  work  itself  as  a  tall,  thin 
man,  often  called  "Long  Will,"  wandering  solitary 
among  the  crowds  of  London,  ill-clad  in  a  long 
dark  robe,  as  he  was  very  poor,  yet  too  proud  to 


CHAUCERIAN  ENGLISH  137 

make  the  customary  deferential  salutations  to  lords 
and  ladies.  He  had  studied  for  the  church,  and  so 
had  the  shaven  crown  of  priest  or  monk,  but  had 
received  no  preferment,  for  which  the  fact  that  he 
was  married  would  in  that  age  have  disqualified 
him,  and  earned  a  precarious  living  as  a  hired  singer 
in  the  churches  and  by  performing  humble  clerical 
work  in  law  offices. 

It  is  true  that  the  very  existence  of  such  an 
author  is  now  disputed  by  some  critics,  though  such 
eminent  authorities  as  Skeat  and  Jusserand  incline 
to  accept  the  description  as  genuine,  and  to  the 
uncritical  reader  the  man  described  is  the  very  man 
to  have  written  the  poem.  But,  fortunately,  nothing 
depends  upon  the  identification.  Be  the  author 
known  or  unknown,  there  stands  the  poem,  preserv- 
ing for  us  one  type  of  English  speech  as  widely 
used  and  readily  understood  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  fourteenth  century. 

It  may  be  observed  that  the  spelling  Plowman  is 
not  a  modern  Americanism,  but  is  favored  by  the 
manuscripts  and  employed  by  the  best  modern 
editors,  as  by  Skeat  in  the  "Encyclopedia  Britannica'' 
(article  Langland) ;  Mr.  Wright,  who  in  the  title 
of  his  edition  uses  Ploughman  in  deference  to  the 
modern  spelling  in  England,  in  the  body  of  the  poem 
regularly  uses  Ploimnan. 

The  "Creed  of  Piers  Plowman,"  often  printed 
with  the  "Vision,"  is  a  later  work  by  another  hand, 
and  is  not  worthy  of  special  consideration. 


138  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

The  opening  of  the  Vision  shows  the  author 
wandering  alone  on  the  picturesque  Malvern  Hills. 
There  he  sees  "a  fair  feeld  ful  of  folk,"  which  is 
readily  perceived  to  be  the  world  and  the  people  in 
it, — among  whom  various  allegorical  characters  are 
soon  distinguished,  conspicuous  among  them  being 
Mede,  the  Scriptural  Lucre  (but  in  many  of  her 
manifestations  what  we  should  now  term  Bribery 
or  Graft)  portrayed  as  an  attractive  woman,  won- 
derful in  richness  of  robes  and  jewels,  about  to 
proceed  to  the  royal  court  to  solemnize  in  presence 
of  the  King  her  stately  marriage  to  Fals  or  Fal- 
senesse.  Numerous  personifications,  personified  vir- 
tues and  vices,  qualities  and  personages  rapidly 
appear,  among  them  Holy  Church,  Wit,  Reason, 
Clergy,  Gluttony,  Waste,  Hmiger,  Covetoiisness, 
Repentance,  Kynde  (i.  e.,  Nature),  etc. 

After  Reason  has  preached  repentance  to  the 
different  classes  of  offenders,  the  multitude  of  re- 
pentant hearers  set  out  on  a  pilgrimage  in  search  of 
Truth. 


Ac    there  was  wight  noon  so  wys 
But  there  was  zvight  none  so  wise 

The  wey  thider    kouthe, 
The  way  thither  knew, 

But  blustreden  forth  as  beestes 

But   (they)   blustered     forth  as  beasts 

Over  bankes  and  hilles ; 
Over  banks    and  hills; 


CHAUCERIAN  ENGLISH  139 

Til    late  was  and  longe — 

Till  late    {it)  was  and  long — 

(Lines  3529-3533-) 

Then  they  meet  a  professional  pilgrim,  whose  hat 
and  robe  are  covered  with  relics  of  the  holy  places 
he  professes  to  have  visited. 

To  him  they  appeal,  with  this  result : 

"I  have  walked  ful  wide 
In  weet  and  in  drye, 
And  sought  goode  seintes 
For  my  soules  helthe. 

"'Knowestow  ought  a  corsaint* 
That  men  calle  Truthe? 
Koudestow  aught  wissen  us  the  wey 
Wher  that  wyef  dwelleth? 

"  'Nay,  so  God  me  helpe !' 
Seide  the  gome:}:  thanne, 
'I  seigh  nevere  palmere, 
With  pyk  ne  with  scrippe, 
Asken  after  him  er,^ 
Til  now  in  this  place.' " 

(Lines  3563-3575O 

Then  suddenly,  without  a  particle  of  introduc- 
tion, Piers  (i.  e.,  Peter)  the  Plowman  "puts  forth 
his  head."  He  appears  at  first  as  simply  a  faithful, 
godly  laborer.  Do  they  want  to  find  Truth?  Is 
that  all?  He  knows  him  well,  and  has  "ben  his 
folwere  al  this  fifty  wynter."  He  can  take  them 
right  to  him,  as  soon  as  he  finishes  sowing  his 
"half-acre." 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  plowman's  wife 


Relic.         t  Wight,    person.         +  Man.         ^  Ere,   ever. 


140  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

was  "Dame  Werch-whan-tyme-is,"  while  his  daugh- 
ter was  named  "Do-wel-or-thi-dame-will-the-hete." 
His  sons  and  his  horses  have  also  sentence  names. 
This  fashion  did  not  originate  with  John  Bunyan  or 
with  the  Puritans.  But  continually,  as  the  poem 
advances,  the  character  of  Piers  Plowman  is  exalted 
until  he  is  recognized  as  the  great  Reformer  and 
the  true  Regenerator  of  the  world,  and  is  at  last 
distinctly  identified  with  Christ  himself. 

There  are  three  visions  of  hopeful  characters 
known  as  Do-wel,  Do-bet  (better),  and  Do-best, 
whose  names  became  popular  catch-words  among 
the  laboring  class. 

"The  poem  is  essentially  one  of  those  which  improve  on 
a  second  reading,  and  as  a  linguistic  monument  it  is  of 
very  high  value The  whole  deserves,  and  will  re- 
pay, a  careful  study;  indeed,  there  are  not  many  single 
w^orks  from  which  a  student  of  English  literature  and  of 
the  English  language  may  derive  more  substantial  benefit." 
— Skeat  in  "Encyclopedia  Britannica,"  article  "Langland." 

The  poem  of  'Tiers  Plowman"  was  evidently 
very  widely  circulated,  for  it  still  exists  in  some- 
what different  forms  in  forty-eight  manuscripts. 
The  date  of  the  poem  seems  to  be  quite  clearly 
fixed,  by  historical  events  to  which  it  refers,  at  or 
near  the  year  1362.  'Tiers  Plowman"  may  thus  be 
said  to  have  opened  the  Chaucerian  epoch,  Chaucer 
being  probably  about  twenty-two  years  of  age  at  the 
time  of  its  appearance.  Yet  this  earlier  poem  uses 
as  large  a  proportion  of  French  and  Latin  words  as 


CHAUCERIAN  ENGLISH  141 

Chaucer  himself,  showing  that  these  had  become 
definitely  a  part  of  the  English  language  at  that  date. 

The  versification  of  "Piers  Plowman"  is  in  the 
old  Anglo-Saxon  meter,  depending  upon  alliteration, 
without  rime,  though  the  literary  class  had  long  be- 
fore adopted  the  French  meter  and  rime  which  still 
characterize  English  verse;  but  to  Langland  and 
those  for  whom  he  wrote  the  alliterative  verse  was 
evidently  still  "the  good  old  way." 

Yet,  in  spite  of  his  leaning  to  the  older  English, 
the  author  uses  Latin  freely,  dividing  his  poem  into 
twenty  (or,  in  some  copies,  twenty-three)  passus, 
instead  of  cantos,  as  they  would  now  be  termed, 
with  Latin  titles.  Texts  of  Scripture  are  quoted  in 
Latin,  and  in  one  case  (lines  255-276)  : 

"An  aungel  of  hevene 
Lowed  to  speke  in  Latin," 

and  uttered  fourteen  Latin  lines  in  discussion  of  the 
royal  authority.  We  are  to  remember  that  all 
churchmen  were  expected  to  know  Latin.  The 
Bible  and  Prayer  Book  were  in  Latin,  state  and 
church  documents  were  commonly  in  Latin,  so  that 
in  any  company  there  was  likely  to  be  some  one 
acquainted  with  that  language;  or,  at  least,  some 
interpreter  would  be  readily  accessible. 

But  the  author  did  not  hesitate  to  give  in  the 
plainest  English  his  idea  of  the  true  foundation  of 
royal  power : 


142  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

"Than  kam  ther  a  kyng, 
Knyghthod  hym  ladde, 
Might  of  the  communes 
Made  hym  to  regne." 

(Lines  223-226.) 

It  is  fairly  startling  to  find  such  a  doctrine  calmly 
stated  in  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century.  This 
doctrine  did  not  originate  in  the  time  of  Cromwell 
or  of  William  III,  but  had  been  from  the  earliest 
period  the  underlying  faith  of  the  common  people 
of  England,  which  they  were  struggling  to  establish 
through  the  days  of  the  Tudors,  the  Stuarts,  and 
the  Georges,  until,  in  the  twentieth  century,  it  is 
the  accepted  principle  of  the  English  constitution 
that  all  the  legislating  and  ruling  power  of  the  realm 
resides  in  the  "might  of  the  Commons." 

But  in  spite  of  the  Latin  and  Norman-French  mix- 
ture, we  find  that  in  this  poem  of  1362  the  con- 
struction of  the  sentence  is  so  like  that  of  modern 
English  that  it  may  now  be  freely  read.  Also,  it  is 
remarked  that  the  conjugation  of  the  verb  and  the 
use  of  auxiliaries  were  nearly  the  same  as  now ;  and 
that,  whereas  the  Anglo-Saxon  had  no  future  tense, 
using  the  present  form  for  both  present  and  future 
time,  as  we  still  say,  "I  sail  for  England  next  week," 
yet  in  "Piers  Plowman"  the  future  auxiliaries  shall 
and  will  are  used  in  practically  the  same  way  as  in 
modern  English, 

After  the  Reformation  the  general  spirit  and  tone 
of  "Piers  Plowman"  was  found  to  accord  so  well 


CHAUCERIAN  ENGLISH  143 

with  the  religious  thought  of  the  time  that  it  was 
printed  in  1550,  under  the  reign  of  Edward  VI, 
when  three  editions  were  sold  in  one  year.  It  was 
again  reprinted  in  1561,  three  years  after  Eliza- 
beth's accession,  and,  we  are  told,  "It  was  evidently 
much  read  during  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  and  is 
not  infrequently  alluded  to  by  writers  of  that  age."* 
This  is  a  most  interesting  fact,  as  showing  that  the 
language  of  this  ancient  poem  was  still  intelligible 
to  the  ordinary  English  reader  after  the  lapse  of 
two  hundred  years. 

The  tone  of  the  poem  is  sad,  sometimes  severe, 
but  never  fierce  or  bitter.  The  whole  work  is  an 
expression  of  what  we  should  now  term  social  or 
industrial  unrest.  It  depicts  the  hardships  and 
miseries  of  the  toilers  and  the  social  corruptions  and 
oppressions  under  which  they  suffered,  but  it  never 
incites  to  violence.  Yet  there  is  no  doubt  that,  by 
giving  voice  to  what  multitudes  felt,  it  helped  to 
prepare  the  way  for  the  great  uprising  of  the 
Peasants'  Revolt  (called  also  Wat  Tyler's  Rebellion) 
of  1 38 1,  for  "Piers  Plowman"  was  quoted,  and  re- 
ferred to  admiringly,  by  the  leaders  of  that  revolt. 
Their  references  show  that  Piers  Plowman,  Do-wel, 
Do-bet,  and  Do-best  had  become  household  words, 
everywhere  understood  among  the  laboring  class. 

Another  brief  quotation  may  here  be  given  to 
show  the  style  of  this  poet  of  more  than  five  hundred 
years  ago.     When  Lady  Alede   {Lucre  or  Graft) 

*  Thomas  Wright,    "Vision   and  Creed   of  Piers  Ploughman,"   Intro. 


144  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

appears  before  the  King,  with  the  purpose  of  mar- 
riage to  Fals  (Falsehood),  the  King  proposes  that 
she  be  wedded,  instead,  to  stern  and  faithful  Con- 
science— a  union  often  attempted  in  later  times. 
But  Conscience  protests : 

(The  alliterative  letters  in  the  original  are  here 
italicized.) 

"Quod  Conscience  to  the  Kyng 
Christ  it  me  forbede ! 
Er  I  wedde  swiche  a  Wii, 
Wo  me  betide ! 
For  she  is  /rele  of  hire  /eith 
Fickel  of  hire  speche, 
And  niaketh  men  wysdo, 
Many  score  tymes; 
Trust  of  her  ^resor 
Bi^rayeth  ful  manye." 

(Lines  1598- 1606.) 

Wyclif's  prose  quickly  follows  Langland's  verse. 
John  Wyclif  was,  in  England  at  least,  the  foremost 
scholar  of  his  day.  A  student,  a  fellow,  and  a  doctor 
of  Oxford  University,  at  one  time  Master  of  Balliol 
College,  he  was  "supreme  in  the  philosophical  dis- 
putations of  the  schools,  and  his  lectures  were 
crowded."  In  1374  he  was  made  rector  of  Lutter- 
worth, and  in  the  same  year  was  a  member  of  a 
royal  commission  to  confer  with  legates  of  the  Pope 
at  Bruges.  He  then  became  famous  as  a  popular 
preacher  in  London.  The  people  responded  eagerly 
to  his  trenchant  criticisms  of  the  folly  and  corrup- 
tion so  widely  prevalent  among  the  clergy  and  monks 


CHAUCERIAN  ENGLISH  145 

of  the  day.  That  which  "Piers  Plowman"  lamented 
and  which  Chaucer  so  keenly  satirized  Wyclif  at- 
tacked as  something  to  be  reformed.  This  at  once 
brought  him  into  the  arena  of  controversy,  and  sud- 
denly the  great  scholar  and  doctor  of  theology 
found  himself  attacked  as  a  heretic. 

The  conditions  against  which  Wyclif  fought  are 
thus  summed  up  in  the  "Catholic  Encyclopedia"  (by 
F.  F.  Urquhart,  article  "Lollards") : 

"In  the  Church  there  was  nearly  as  much  disorder  as  in 
the  State.  The  pestilence  (the  Black  Death)  had  in  many 
cases  disorganized  the  parish  clergy,  the  old  penitential 
system  had  broken  down,  while  luxury,  at  least  among 
the  few,  was  on  the  increase.  Preachers,  orthodox  and 
heretical,  and  poets  as  different  in  character  as  Langland, 
Cower,  and  Chaucer  are  unanimous  in  the  gloomy  picture 
they  give  of  the  condition  of  the  clergy,  secular  and 
regular.  However  much  may  be  allowed  for  exaggera- 
tion, it  is  clear  that  reform  was  badly  needed." 

His  heresy  was  at  first  thoroughly  English.  It 
was  simple  patriotism.  The  English  who  had  an- 
ciently defied  the  tyranny  of  the  Roman  Caesar  made 
no  nice  distinctions,  but,  while  they  accepted  the 
religious  leadership  of  the  Pope,  had  always  resented 
any  claim  of  civil  authority  by  the  Roman  pontiff. 

Here  was  an  irrepressible  conflict.  Numerous 
doctrinal  points  came  to  be  involved,  but  this  was 
the  center  of  the  controversy.  Wyclif's  position 
accorded  well  with  the  general  trend  of  English 
thought,  and  so  was  popular,  though  few  were  ready 
to  follow  him  to  all  his  relentless  conclusions. 

10 


146  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

The  ecclesiastical  authorities,  of  course,  felt  them- 
selves bound  to  crush  the  disturber.  From  1377 
until  his  death  he  was  never  free  from  ecclesiastical 
attack  and  never  faltered  in  his  strenuous  defense. 
Twice  he  was  summoned  before  church  tribunals, 
but  sentence  against  him  was  defeated  either  by- 
popular  tumult  or  by  court  interference.  Wyclif 
was  left  free,  though  in  retirement  at  his  rectory  of 
Lutterworth,  until  a  timel}^  natural  death,  in  1384, 
placed  him  beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  any  earthly 
tribunal. 

These  seven  closing  years,  when  the  quiet  scholar 
found  himself  thrust  into  the  forefront  of  con- 
troversy, were  the  most  fruitful  of  his  life  and  were 
marked  by  amazing  industry.  After  his  break  with 
the  papacy,  he  settled  it  with  himself  that  the 
supreme  and  final  test  of  all  truth  must  be  the  very 
words  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  Therefore  the  peo- 
ple must  have  the  Bible  in  their  own  language,  so 
that  every  one  might  read  and  learn  for  himself 
what  was  divinely  revealed  as  Christian  truth. 
Hence  he  set  himself,  with  a  small  company  of  faith- 
ful scholars,  to  translate  the  entire  Bible  into  En- 
glish, and  the  translation  was  completed  shortly 
before  his  death. 

That  translation  and  its  influence  upon  the  En- 
glish language  will  be  more  fully  treated  in  the 
chapter  upon  "The  English  Bible."  The  style  of 
Wyclif 's  scriptural  prose  may  be  seen  in  the  follow- 
ing verses  from  his  translations: 


CHAUCERIAN  ENGLISH  147 

"And  the  while  he  preide,  the  likenesse  of  his  cheere 
was  maad  othir  maner,  and  his  clothing  whit  schynynge. 
And,  loo!  tweye  men  spaken  with  him;  forsothe  Moyses 
and  Elye  weren  seyn  in  mageste ;  and  thei  seyden  his 
goynge  out,  which  he  was  to  fillinge  (fulfil)  in  Jerusalem. 

"Forsoothe  Petre,  and  thei  that  weren  with  him,  weren 
greued  (or  heued)  with  sleep,  and  thei  waking  syzen  his 
mageste,  and  twei  men  that  stooden  with  him.  And  it  was 
don,  whanne  thei  departiden  fro  him,  Petre  seith  to  Jhesu, 
Comandour,  it  is  good  to  us  for  to  be  here,  and  make  we 
here  thre  tabernaclis,  oon  to  thee,  and  oon  to  Moyses,  and 
oon  to  Elye ;  not  wittinge  what  he  schuldo  seye.  Sotheli 
him  spekinge  thes  thingis,  a  cloude  was  maad,  and  schade- 
wide  hem ;  and  thei  dreddon  hem  entringe  in  to  the  clowde. 
And  a  vois  was  maad  fro  the  clowde,  seyinge.  This  is  my 
dereworthe  sone,  heere  ze  him." — Luke  ix,  29-35. 

His  Bible  was  read  everywhere  among  the  com- 
mon people,  thus  at  once  unifying  and  fixing  the 
popular  language.  At  the  same  time,  with  wonder- 
ful administrative  ability,  in  his  great  contest  against 
the  hierarchy  of  Rome,  Wyclif  had  sent  out  a  host 
of  disciples  who  are  thus  described  by  the  historian 
Green : 

"With  the  practical  ability  which  marked  his  character, 
Wyclif  set  on  foot  about  this  time  a  body  of  poor 
preachers.  The  coarse  sermons,  bare  feet,  and  russet  dress 
of  these  'Simple  Priests'  moved  the  laughter  of  rector  and 
canon,  but  they  proved  a  rapid  and  effective  means  of 
diffusing  their  master's  doctrines.  How  rapid  their  prog- 
ress must  have  been  we  may  see  from  the  panic-struck 
exaggerations  of  their  opponents.  A  few  years  later  they 
complained  that  the  followers  of  Wyclif  abounded  every- 
where and  in  all  classes,  among  the  baronage,  in  the 
cities,  among  the  peasantry  of  the  country-side,  even  in 
the  monastic  cell  itself.    'Every  second  man  one  meets  is 


148  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

a  Lollard.'  'Lollard/  a  word  which  probably  means  'idle 
babbler,'  was  the  nickname  with  which  the  Orthodox 
churchmen  chose  to  insult  their  assailants." 

At  the  same  time  Wyclif  was  appealing  to  the 
people  through  a  multitude  of  tracts  which  had  the 
effect  of  still  more  thoroughly  diffusing  the  English 
speech  which  he  had  adopted,  among  the  people  at 
large,  than  even  the  preaching  of  his  disciples  at 
every  market-place  and  cross-roads  could. 

"With  an  amazing  industry  he  issued  tract  after  tract 
in  the  tongue  of  the  people  itself.  The  dry  syllogistic 
Latin,  the  abstruse  and  involved  argument  which  the  great 
doctor  had  addressed  to  his  academic  hearers  were  sud- 
denly flung  aside,  and  by  a  transition  which  marks  the 
wonderful  genius  of  the  man,  the  scholar  was  transformed 
into  the  pamphleteer.  If  Chaucer  is  the  father  of  our 
later  English  poetry,  Wyclif  is  the  father  of  our  later 
English  prose.  The  rough,  clear,  homely  English  of  his 
tracts,  the  speech  of  the  plowman  and  the  trader  of  the 
day,  though  colored  with  the  picturesque  phraseology  of 
the  Bible,  is  in  its  literary  use  as  distinctly  a  creation  of 
his  own  as  the  style  in  which  he  embodied  it,  the  terse 
vehement  sentences,  the  stinging  sarcasms,  the  hard 
antitheses  which  aroused  the  dullest  mind  like  a  whip." 

There  seem  to  be  good  grounds  to  believe  that 
the  style  of  Wyclif  influenced  the  English  of 
Chaucer,  for  Chaucer  was  a  protege  of  John  of 
Gaunt  of  the  royal  line,  head  of  the  House  of 
Lancaster,  who  was  also  the  patron  and  defender 
of  Wyclif.  It  is  thus  but  natural  that  Chaucer 
should  have  been  brought  much  into  association 


CHAUCERIAN  ENGLISH  149 

with  the  followers  and  works  of  Wyclif,  and  his 
vigorous  mind  could  not  have  failed  to  appreciate 
the  power  and  vigor  of  the  English  which  the  great 
reformer  was  using  in  his  scriptural  translations 
and  in  his  controversial  tracts. 

Prose  of  a  far  different  type  appears  in  "The 
Travels  of  Sir  John  de  Mandeville,"  existing  in 
three  languages,  Latin,  French,  and  English — a  work 
once  considered  to  mark  a  definitely  fixed  date. 
The  old  knight  who  professed  himself  the  author 
tells  in  the  book  itself  how  he  sailed  from  England 
in  1322,  and,  after  his  wide  journeys  through  the 
lapse  of  many  years,  returning  aged  and  ill,  wrote 
this  book  "in  the  year  of  grace  1356."  But  it  seems 
now  definitely  settled  that  Sir  John  de  Mandeville 
is  an  imaginary  character  and  his  journeys  fictitious, 
taken  bodily  from  other  authors  as  far  back  as  Pliny, 
and  enriched  by  all  kinds  of  fables,  conceits  and 
inventions,  together  with  some  novel  facts  that  are 
interwoven,  as  of  a  "tree  that  produces  wool"  (the 
cotton-plant) ;  that  the  real  author  was  a  physician 
of  Liege,  John  de  Bourgoyne,  often  called  Jehan 
de  La  Barbe  (John  with  the  beard),  who  died  in 
1372.  Thus  we  only  know  that  the  "Travels"  must 
have  been  composed  (without  doubt  in  French) 
before  that  date.  When  or  by  whom  the  English 
translation  was  made  can  not  be  exactly  determined, 
but  it  is  evident  that  it  was  by  some  one  thoroughly 
familiar  with  the  idiomatic  English  of  that  day. 
Jusserand,  from  an  examination  of  original  sources. 


150  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

says  it  "was  made  after  1377,  and  twice  revised  at 
the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century."* 
Summing  up  the  whole  discussion,  he  says : 

"One  thing,  however,  remains,  and  can  not  be  blotted 
out;  namely,  the  book  of  travels  bearing  the  name  of 
Mandeville,  the  translation  of  which  is  one  of  the  oldest 
and  best  specimens  of  English  prose."t 

Of  the  quality  of  the  translation,  Marsh  says : 

"Although  the  style  and  grammatical  structure  of  Man- 
deville are  idiomatic,  yet  the  proportion  of  words  of 
Latin  and  French  origin  employed  by  him,  in  his  straight- 
forward, unpoetical  and  unadorned  narrative,  is  greater 
than  that  found  in  the  works  of  Langlande,  Chaucer, 
Gower  or  any  other  English  poet  of  that  century.":}: 

Among  the  words — 144  in  five  chapters — that 
Marsh  enumerates  as  new  in  Mandeville  are  many 
that  we  can  scarcely  imagine  the  English  language 
ever  to  have  existed  without,  such  as :  abstain,  ap- 
pear, assembly,  cherish,  claim,  command,  conquer, 
contrary,  enforce,  foundation,  glorious,  glory,  im- 
mortal, incline,  menace,  monster,  nation,  opinion, 
proclaim,  promise,  publish,  receive,  reconcile,  title, 
translate,  value,  visit. 

The  popularity  of  Mandeville's  "Travels"  was 
immense.  Even  at  this  day  there  remain  about 
three  hundred  manuscripts  of  it.  The  English  were 
then  passionately  fond  of  travels.  Just  as,  in  the 
time  of  Layamon,  they  were  eager  to  escape  from 


*  "A   Literary  History  of  the  English  People,"  vol.  i,  p.   406,   note. 
t  Ihid,   p.   403.         X  "Origin  and  History   of  the  English   Language," 
lect.  vi,  p.  268. 


CHAUCERIAN  ENGLISH  151 

their  brief  barbaric  history  into  classic  antiquity  by 
tracing  their  ancestry  back  to  ^neas  and  making 
the  story  of  the  siege  of  Troy  their  own,  so  now 
they  were  eager  to  reach  out  from  their  beloved 
little  island  to  learn  all  that  could  be  known  or  told 
or  imagined  of  the  wide  world,  which  did  not  yet 
include  America.  The  diction  of  this  ancient  work 
bearing  the  name  of  Mandeville  shows  the  degree 
of  fulness,  force,  and  elegance  which  English  prose 
had  at  that  period  attained,  while  its  popularity  had 
the  effect  of  making  its  felicitous  style  a  standard 
for  the  after  time. 

A  single  extract  will  give  an  idea  of  the  best 
popular  English  prose  of  the  Chaucerian  era : 

"There  is  a  vale  betwene  the  mountaynes,  that 
dureth  nyghe  a  4  myle;  and  summen  clepen  it  the 
vale  enchaunted,  some  clepen  it  the  vale  of  Develes, 
and  some  clepen  it  the  vale  perilous.  In  that  vale 
heren  men  often  tyme  grete  tempestes  and  thondres, 
and  grete  murmures  and  noyses,  alle  dayes  and 
nyghtes :  and  gret  noyse,  as  it  were  sown  of  tabours 
and  of  nakeres  and  of  trompes,  as  thoughe  it  were 
of  a  gret  feste.  This  vale  is  alle  fulle  of  develes, 
and  hathe  ben  alle  weys.  And  men  seyn  there  that 
it  is  on  of  the  entrees  of  helle.  In  that  vale  is  gret 
plentee  of  gold  and  sylver:  wherefore  many  mys- 
belevynge  men,  and  manye  Cristene  men  also,  gon 
in  often  tyme,  for  to  have  of  the  thresoure  that  there 
is:  but  few  comen  agen;  and  namely  of  the  mys- 
belevynge  men,  ne  of  the  Cristene  men  nouther;  for 

thei  ben  anon  strangled  of  develes But  the 

gode  Cristene  men  that  ben  stable  in  the  Feythe 


152  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

entren  welle  withouten  perile.  For  thei  wil  first 
schryven  hem,  and  marken  hem  with  the  tokene  of 
the  Holy  Cros;  so  that  the  fendes  ne  han  no  power 
over  hem.  But  alle  be  it  that  thei  ben  withouten 
perile,  yit  natheles  ne  ben  thei  not  withouten  drede, 
whan  that  thei  seen  the  develes  visibely  and  bodyly 
alle  aboute  hem,  that  maken  fulle  many  dyverse 
assautes  and  manaces  in  eyr  and  in  erthe,  and 
agasten  hem  with  strokes  of  thondre  blastes  and  of 

tempestes And    thus    wee    passeden    that 

perilouse  vale,  and  founden  thereinne  gold  and 
sylver  and  precious  stones  and  riche  jewelles  gret 
plentee,  both  here  and  there,  as  us  semed;  but 
whether  that  it  was  as  us  semede,  I  wot  nere,  for  I 
touched  none,  because  that  the  develes  ben  so  subtyle 
to  make  a  thing  to  seme  otherwise  than  it  is,  for  to 
disceyve  mankynde,  and  therefore  I  towched  none; 
and  also  because  that  I  wolde  not  ben  put  out  of  my 
devocioun,  for  I  was  more  devout  thanne,  than 
evere  I  was  before  or  after,  and  alle  for  the  drede 
of  fendes  that  I  saughe  in  dyverse  figures ;  and  also 
for  the  gret  multytude  of  dede  bodyes  that  I  saughe 
there  liggynge  be  the  weye  be  alle  the  vale,  as 
thoughe  there  had  ben  a  bataylle  betwene  2  kynges 
and  the  myghtyest  of   the  contree,   and  that  the 

gretter  partye  had  ben  discomfyted  and  slayn 

But  evere  more  God  of  his  grace  halp  us;  and  so 
wee  passed  that  perilous  vale  withouten  perile  and 
withouten  encombrance.  Thanlced  be  alle  myghty 
Godd." — "The  Voiage  and  Travaile  of  Sir  John 
Maundeville" 

John  Gower  (1325-1408)  was  somewhat  older 
than  Chaucer,  but  outlived  him.  He  was  rich  and 
of  good  family,  owning  several  manors.     He  had 


CHAUCERIAN  ENGLISH  153 

none  of  Chaucer's  vicissitudes  and  struggles,  and 
knew  nothing  of  the  toilsome  years  that  Chaucer 
spent  when  most  prosperous.  Cower  was  of  blame- 
less character,  and  took  pains  to  make  his  verse 
extraordinarily  clean,  that  is,  according  to  the 
standards  of  that  day,  though  a  modern  editor  has 
felt  constrained  to  issue  an  expurgated  edition  of 
his  chief  work.  Chaucer  called  him  "the  moral 
Cower."  He  and  Chaucer  were  friends,  so  that 
when  Chaucer  went  abroad  on  his  mission  of  1378 
he  appointed  Cower  as  one  of  two  representatives 
or  attorneys  to  act  for  him  in  his  absence. 

Cower,  like  so  many  of  the  scholarly  men  of  his 
day,  was  a  trilinguist,  writing  indifferently  in  Latin, 
French,  or  English,  though  he  had  to  apologize  for 
the  defects  of  his  French  on  the  ground  that  he 
was,  after  all,  and  could  not  help  being,  English. 
His  first  important  work.  Speculum  Meditantis — 
"The  Mirror  of  the  Meditative" — was  in  French; 
the  second,  Vox  Clamantis — "The  Voice  of  One 
Crying  (in  the  Wilderness)" — was  in  Latin;  the 
third,  Confessio  Amantis — "The  Lover's  Confes- 
sion"— was  in  English;  but  even  to  this  he  felt 
bound  to  give  a  Latin  title  lest  some  should  think 
that  he  knew  no  better  language  than  English.  It 
was  only  after  Chaucer  had  become  famed  by  his 
English  poems  that  Cower  undertook  English  verse, 
and,  even  then,  as  he  tells  us,  at  the  special  request 
of  King  Richard  II.  So,  in  1383,  he  wrote  his 
poem  of  "The  Lover's  Confession,"  in  which  the 


154  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

typical  lover  of  the  olden  time,  scorned  by  the  dis- 
dainful fair  one,  whom  he  nevertheless  can  not  help 
loving  and  suffering  for,  appeals  to  Venus — a  queer 
choice — to  cure  him  of  his  malady.  Venus  sends 
him  to  a  priest  of  hers,  called  Genius,  to  reclaim 
him.  This  confessor  of  the  heathen  goddess,  who 
exhibits  many  of  the  characteristics  of  the  ordinary 
Christian  ecclesiastic  of  Gower's  day,  undertakes  to 
cure  the  suffering  lover  by  a  series  of  discourses, 
in  which  he  relates  a  variety  of  old  Latin  and  Greek 
tales  and  legends,  through  about  30,000  lines.  The 
plot  is  rather  thin,  but  it  served  as  a  thread  on 
which  to  string  one  hundred  and  twelve  short  stories, 
of  which  Jusserand  remarks  that  "two  or  three  of 
them  are  very  well  told." 

The  style  of  the  poem  may  be  sufficiently  illus- 
trated by  an  extract  from  the  tale  of  King  Mide 
(Midas)  of  Frige  (Phrygia).  It  is  to  be  noted 
how  relentlessly  Gower  Anglicizes  the  ancient  Greek 
and  Latin  names  whenever  they  come  in  his  way, 
with  what  we  may  call  a  peculiarly  English  inde- 
pendence, as  the  old-time  Englishmen  somehow 
twisted  the  Italian  Livorno  into  Leghorn,  and  as  the 
English  "Tommy"  of  our  own  day,  unable  to  pro- 
nounce Ypres — the  name  of  the  town  in  Western 
Flanders  for  which  he  fought  so  long — is  abundantly 
satisfied  to  call  it  Wypers.  The  extract  from  the 
tale  of  Midas  is  as  follows: 

"This  king  with  avarice  is  smitte 
That  all  the  worlde  it  mighte  witte. 


CHAUCERIAN  ENGLISH  155 

For  he  to  Bachus  thanne  preide, 
That  thereupon  his  hande  he  leide, 
It  shulde  through  his  touche  anone 
Become  gold,  and  thereupon 
This  god  him  graunteth  as  he  bad. 
*Though  was  this  king  of  Frige  glad. 
And  for  to  put  it  in  assay, 
With  all  the  haste  that  he  may. 
He  toucheth  that,  he  toucheth  this, 
And  in  his  hond  all  gold  it  is. 
The  stone,  the  tree,  the  leef,  the  gras, 
The  flour,  the  fruit,  all  gold  it  was. 
Thus  toucheth  he,  while  he  may  laste 
To  go,  but  hunger  ate  laste 
Him  toke  so  that  he  must  nede 
By  way  of  kinde  his  hunger  fede. 
The  cloth  was  laid,  the  bord  was  set, 
And  all  was  forth  to-fore  him  set; 
His  dish,  his  cup,  his  drink,  his  mete. 
But  whan  he  wolde  or  drink  or  ete, 
Anone  as  it  his  mouth  cam  nigh, 
It  was  all  gold,  and  than  he  sighf 
Of  avarice  the  folic." 

In  his  dismay  the  king  prays  the  god  to  take  back 
his  deadly  gift  and  is  directed  to  bathe  in  the  river 
Pactolus,  when  he  is  restored  to  normal  humanity; 
but  the  river  ever  since  has  flowed  over  golden  sands. 

Gower's  verse  is  octosyllabic,  with  eight  syllables 
and  four  accents  in  each  line,  instead  of  the  penta- 
meter of  Chaucer,  which  has  five  accents  and  ten 
(or  more)  syllables  to  the  line.  Gower  seems  easier 
reading  than  Chaucer,  his  verse  running  with  a 
lilting,  rippling  cadence,  which,  however,  becomes 

*  Then.        f  Saw. 


156  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

too  uniform,  as  if  the  syllables  had  been  counted  off 
on  the  fingers,  and  suggesting  the  brook  that  "goes 
on  forever."    James  Russell  Lowell  says : 

"Gower  had  no  notion  of  the  uses  of  rhyme  except 
as  a  kind  of  crease  at  the  end  of  every  eighth  syllable 
where  the  verse  was  to  be  folded  over  again  into  another 
layer.    He  says,  for  example, 

'This  maiden  Canacee  was  hight, 
Both  in  the  day  and  eke  by  night,' 
as  if  people  commonly  changed  their  names  at  dark.    And 
he  could  not  contrive  to  say  even  this  without  the  clumsy 
pleonasm  of  both  and  eke." — "My  Study  Windows." 

Gower  had  none  of  Chaucer's  skill  in  type-painting 
and  character-drawing,  doubtless  in  part  because  his 
easy  life  had  kept  him  from  the  close  and  earnest 
association  with  "all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men," 
which  had  marked  the  busy  and  strenuous  life  of 
Chaucer.  His  verse  is  often  easier  to  read  just 
because  he  is  not  troubled  with  the  strain  of  original 
thought  but  is  abundantly  content  with  mechanically 
jingling  versification. 

Yet  Gower  was  for  a  time  among  his  contem- 
poraries more  popular  than  Chaucer.  The  English- 
men of  that  day,  while  strong  in  business,  in  states- 
manship, and  in  war,  were  in  their  literary  child- 
hood. They  wanted  stories,  and  Gower  gave  them 
stories.  He  brought  to  them  all  that  ordinary 
readers  among  them  would  ever  know  of  the  tales 
and  legends  of  ancient  days,  and  in  an  easy-going 
meter  and  rime  that  could  be  followed  without  study 
and  almost  without  exertion  of  thought. 


CHAUCERIAN  ENGLISH  157 

The  formative  influence  of  his  poetry  must,  there- 
fore, have  been  very  great,  as  numbers  of  people 
would  read  now  one,  now  another,  of  his  short 
stories  in  what  was  for  them  pleasing  verse,  and 
thus,  by  reading  the  commonplace,  cultivating  a 
linguistic  sense  that  would  qualify  them  to  enjoy 
something  better.  The  proportion  of  French  and 
Latin  derivatives  in  his  poetry  is  about  the  same  as 
in  that  of  Chaucer.  Like  Chaucer,  he  used  the  East 
Midland  dialect,  his  work  helping  to  make  that 
dialect  what  it  has  since  become,  the  accepted  stand- 
ard of  modern  English. 


VI 

CHAUCER 


VI 

CHAUCER 

The  chief  poet  of  his  own  age,  and  one  of  the 
foremost  of  all  ages,  of  English  literature,  was 
Geoffrey  Chaucer.  Of  his  life  we  know  singularly- 
little.  The  traditional  "Life  of  Chaucer"  has  been 
clearly  shown  to  be  fictitious.  The  year  of  his  birth, 
long  given  as  1328,  is  now,  for  what  seem  sound 
reasons,  set  as  late  as  1340,  a  date  that  harmonizes 
with  the  known  events  of  his  life.  Lounsbury 
remarks : 

"Unhappily,  the  scantiness  of  the  material  for  the  poet's 
life  does  not  involve  a  corresponding  brevity  in  its  treat- 
ment  The    biography    of    Chaucer    is    built    upon 

doubts,  and  thrives  upon  perplexities.  Without  these  there 
would  be  exceedingly  little  to  say.  Uncertainty  begins 
v^fith  the  date  of  his  birth,  it  hovers  over  most  of  his 
career,  and  adds  to  the  length  of  the  narrative  as  in- 
evitably as  it  detracts  from  its  interest." 

— "Studies  in  Chaucer,"  vol.  i,  p.  11. 

We  know  that  the  great  poet  was  in  his  youth  a 
page  in  one  of  the  royal  households,  then  a  soldier 
who  became  a  prisoner  of  war  in  France,  and  later 
an  esquire  of  the  king;  that  he  was  sent  abroad  on 
various  important  royal  commissions,  to  Flanders, 
to  France,  and  twice  to  Italy. 

From  1374  until  his  death  he  held,  with  some 

161 

11 


162  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

interruptions,  a  number  of  civil  offices  which  show 
him  to  have  been  a  competent  and  trustworthy  man 
of  affairs.  In  1386  he  was  elected  a  member  of 
Parliament  from  Kent.  In  1374  he  is  described  as 
being  "in  a  whirl  of  prosperity."  Later  in  life,  by 
the  lapse  of  offices  and  the  mutations  of  politics,  he 
saw  periods  of  straitened  circumstances  so  common 
in  the  lives  of  men  of  letters,  during  one  of  which 
he  wrote  the  well-known  "Compleynte  to  His 
Purse" : 

The  Compleynte  01^  Chaucer  to  His  Purse 

"To  yow  my  purse  and  to  noon  other  wighte 
Complayne  I,  for  ye  be  my  lady  dere ! 
I  am  so  sory  now  that  ye  been  lyghte, 
For  certes  yf  ye  make  me  hevy  chere. 
Me  were  as  leef  be  layde  upon  my  here. 
For  whiche  unto  your  mercy  thus  I  crye, 
Beeth  hevy  ageyne,  or  elles  mote  I  die. 

Now  voucheth  sauf  this  day,  or  hyt  be  nyghte. 
That  I  of  yow  the  blissful  soune  may  here. 
Or  see  your  colour  lyke  the  sunne  bryghte. 
That  of  yelownesse  hadde  never  pere. 
Ye  be  my  lyf !  ye  be  myn  hertys  stere ! 
Queue  of  comfort  and  good  companye! 
Beth  hevy  ayeyne,  or  elles  moote  I  dye!" 

The  busy  years  up  to  the  close  of  1378,  when  he 
returned  from  his  second  expedition  to  Italy,  have 
been  styled  his  "unproductive  period,"  but  in  them 
he  was  becoming  the  many-sided  man  of  the  world 
and  of  affairs  that  made  possible  the  power  of  his 


CHAUCER  163 

later  poems.  His  chief  poetic  work  seems  to  have 
been  produced  during  the  fifteen  years  from  1378- 
1394,  at  which  latter  date  he  writes  as  if  his  day 
of  poetry  were  past. 

Chaucer  appears  to  have  been  married  before  1367 
and  his  wife  is  believed  to  have  died  in  1387.  She 
bore  the  name  of  Philippa,  was  one  of  the  maids 
of  the  queen,  and  is  believed  to  have  been  sister-in- 
law  of  John  of  Gaunt,  Edward  HFs  fourth  son,  so 
called  because  born  in  Ghent.  Chaucer  always  be- 
longed to  the  political  party  of  this  powerful  noble- 
man, who  was  viewed  as  his  patron  and  granted 
him  many  favors.  It  has  been  already  mentioned 
that  John  of  Gaunt  was  also  the  patron  and  pro- 
tector of  Wyclif.  When  Henry  I,  son  of  John  of 
Gaunt,  became  king,  in  1399,  Chaucer  was  at  once 
received  into  favor  for  the  short  remnant  of  his  life. 

Notable  among  the  formative  incidents  of  his 
career  are  his  two  journeys  to  Italy  (1372  and 
1378).  His  knowledge  of  the  Italian  language  and 
literature  distinctly  and  favorably  affected  all  his 
later  work.  Italy,  with  its  ancient  monuments  and 
classic  memories,  seems  always  to  have  had  an 
expanding  and  inspiring  influence  upon  Englishmen 
of  the  olden  time,  as  notably  in  the  case  of  Alfred 
the  Great.  Whereas  Chaucer's  early  work  was 
largely  based  upon  French  models,  he  was  later 
greatly  influenced  by  the  Italian,  especially  by  Boc- 
caccio. Hence  his  literary  life  has  been  conveniently 
divided   into   three   periods — French,   Italian,   and 


164  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

English.  His  various  foreign  expeditions  took  from 
him  all  narrow  "insularity"  so  that,  while  stoutly 
an  Englishman  at  heart,  he  had  a  vivid  conception 
of  the  greater  and  older  world  beyond  the  boundaries 
of  England. 

Chaucer  is  commonly  supposed  to  have  introduced 
a  great  number  of  French  and  Latin  words  into  our 
vocabulary,  and  to  have  overloaded  the  English 
language  with  these  elements.  In  fact,  he  supplied 
few,  if  any,  that  were  not  already  in  use.  Chaucer, 
though  of  courtly  connections,  aspired  to  be  a  popu- 
lar poet,  and  no  author  becomes  popular  by  the  use 
of  strange  and  unusual  words.  Moreover,  to  have 
put  pedantic,  learned  words  into  the  mouth  of  the 
Host  of  the  Tabard,  the  Miller  or  the  Wife  of  Bath 
would  have  been  a  violation  of  all  literary  prob- 
ability, so  incongruous  as  to  be  ridiculous.  As  we 
say  in  modern  phrase,  it  would  have  "killed  the 
book." 

It  has  been  already  shown  how  largely  and  how 
inevitably  the  new  English  of  the  fourteenth  century 
had  adopted  French  and  Latin  words  and  deriva- 
tives to  fill  up  its  impoverished  vocabulary.  We 
find  such  words  in  the  poem  of  "Piers  Plowman," 
in  the  tracts  and  in  the  Bible  of  Wyclif,  in  the 
'Travels  of  Sir  John  de  Mandeville"  and  in  the 
"Confessio  Amantis"  of  Gower.  The  diction  of 
Wyclif's  Bible,  indeed,  is  predominantly  Anglo- 
Saxon,  seeking  always  for  the  simplest  word  that 
will  carry  the  meaning  of  the  Scriptural  text  to  the 


CHAUCER  165 

unlearned  man.  Yet  he  translated  from  the  Latin 
Vulgate,  and  much  of  the  theological  language  was 
derived  from  the  Latin  through  the  church,  so  that 
he  uses  many  words  of  Latin  derivation,  as  multi- 
tude, command,  ordain,  infirmities,  disciple,  sub- 
stance, temptation,  deliver,  etc.  In  Langland, 
"Mandeville,"  and  Gower,  the  proportion  of  French 
and  Latin  words  or  derivatives  is  as  large  as  in 
Chaucer.  Langland  evidently  wrote  his  "Piers 
Plowman"  for  the  common  people,  and  it  was  popu- 
lar among  them.  The  "Travels  of  Mandeville" 
seem  to  have  been  widely  and  eagerly  read  by  all 
classes.  Gower,  as  already  stated,  was  for  a  time 
more  popular  than  Chaucer.  These  French  and 
Latin  derivatives  were  in  the  English  language  of 
the  day,  and  there  was  a  tendency  toward  an  undue 
predominance  of  the  foreign  element,  as  English 
was  still  felt  in  all  courtly  and  learned  circles  to 
be  an  inferior  speech,  a  language  of  mere  com- 
munication, but  not  of  literature.  Chaucer  first 
showed  decisively  its  high  literary  possibilities  and 
proved  the  English  language  to  be  admirable  and 
beautiful  b}--  and  for  itself.  "With  Chaucer,  indeedT^ 
began  the  arrest  of  the  rapid  changes  that  wer 
going  on  in  the  development  of  the  Engl 
tongue."*  -^ 

What  Chaucer  did  was  to  select,  as  every  great 
writer  does,    from   the  materials   of   speech  about 

*  LouNSBUSY,  "Studies  in  Chaucer,"  vol.  ii,  ch.  6,  p.  437.     Italics  by 
present  author. 


ish  ) 


166  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

him,  those  words  and  phrases  which  he  feels  to  be 
most  clear,  vigorous,  delicate  or  elegant,  fullest  of 
worthy  association,  most  far-reaching  in  suggestion, 
most  euphonious  as  words,  most  harmonious  as  set 
in  phrases,  and  in  each  instance  fittest  for  the  mean- 
ing then  and  there  to  be  expressed.  Because  a 
truly  great  writer  is  always  one  endowed  with  good 
taste,  keen  perception,  sound  judgment  and  with  that 
linguistic  sense  of  the  possibilities  of  language  which 
is  as  innate  and  incommunicable  as  the  military 
sense  of  a  great  commander,  his  choice  dominates 
the  minds  of  his  readers  and  tends  at  once  to  popu- 
larize and  to  fix  the  forms  of  language  he  has 
chosen.  Because  a  great  writer  cares  for  something 
more,  and  is  capable  of  something  more  than  dic- 
tion, he  puts  into  his  chosen  words  thoughts  that 
the  world  will  not  willingly  let  die,  and  his  writings 
thus  establish  an  influential  and  enduring  standard. 
Thus  Lowell  says  of  Chaucer: 

"He  found  our  language  lumpish,  stiff,  unwilling,  too 
apt  to  speak  Saxonly  in  grouty  monosyllables;  he  left  it 
enriched  with  the  longer  measure  of  the  Italian  and 
Provencal  poets.  He  reconciled,  in  the  harmony  of  his 
verse,  the  English  bluntness  with  the  dignity  and  elegance 
of  the  less  homely  Southern  speech.  Though  he  did  not 
and  could  not  create  our  language  ....  yet  it  is  true  that 
he  first  made  it  easy,  and  to  that  extent  modern,  so  that 
Spenser,  two  hundred  years  later,  studied  his  method  and 
called  him  master." 

— "My  Study  Windows,"  Chaucer,  p.  265. 

When  Chaucer  became  famous  many  poems  were 

attributed  to  him  that  were  not  his,  as  the  "Testa- 


CHAUCER  167 

ment  of  Love,"  etc.,  which  have  been  proved  not 
to  be  by  Chaucer,  and  some  of  which  have  now  been 
traced  to  other  authors.  "The  undisputed  poetry 
of  Chaucer  is  found  to  fall  under  twenty-six  titles, 
and  to  embrace  nearly  thirty-five  thousand  lines — in 
precise  figures  thirty-four  thousand,  nine  hundred 
and  twenty-six."* 

One  who  would  be  sure  that  he  is  really  reading 
Chaucer  should  depend  only  upon  a  good  standard 
edition,  as  that  of  Robert  Bell  or  Skeat,  and  should 
note  well  the  introductory  matter,  in  which  the 
doubtful  poems  or  portions  of  poems  are  commonly 
so  indicated. 

His  genuine  poetry  needs  a  certain  wise  discrimi- 
nation in  the  reading.  He  was  too  ready  to  make 
the  coarser  personages  he  introduced  speak  in  char- 
acter, and  for  some  of  his  story-telling  he  seems  to 
have  taken  for  his  model  the  tales  enjoyed  and 
applauded  at  a  class  of  convivial  feasts  where  gross- 
ness  was  a  recommendation.  For  all  this  the  only 
plea  in  defense  is  that  this  early  poet  followed  some 
of  the  worse  tendencies  of  a  coarse,  rude  age  in  the 
dawn  of  English  literature  and  civilization. 

Largely  free  from  such  blemishes  are  the  "Troylus 
and  Cryseyde,"  the  ''Legende  of  Goode  Women" 
(though  among  them  he  oddly  enough  places  Dido 
and  Cleopatra),  the  "House  of  Fame,"  the  "Ro- 
maunt  (Romance)  of  the  Rose,"  "The  Boke  of  the 
Duchesse,"  and  the  "Assembly  of  Foules";  also  the 

*  I,ouNSBURy,  "Studies  in  Chaucer/'  vol.  ii,  cb.  4,  p.  3. 


168  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

famous  and  vivid  "Prologue"  to  the  "Canterbury 
Tales,"  and,  among  the  "Tales,"  those  of  the  Knight, 
the  Man  of  Law,  the  Frere  (Friar),  the  Clerk, 
the  Squire,  the  Frankeleyne,  the  Pardoner,  the 
Prior  esse,  the  Nonne  Prest  (Nuns'  Priest),  the 
Chanounes  Yemanne  (Canon's  Yeoman),  and  the 
Persone  (Parson). 

So  much  has  been  written,  and  much  of  it  so 
well,  upon  the  poetry  of  Chaucer  that  no  general 
discussion  need  be  here  attempted.  We  may  only 
give  certain  brief  selections,  less  familiar  than  those 
commonly  quoted,  but  so  simple  in  style  as  to  be 
read  without  special  difficulty.  First,  a  stanza  from 
the  "Romaunt  of  the  Rose" : 

"Hard  is  his  hert  that  loveth  nought, 
In  May,  whan  al  this  mirth  is  wrought; 
Whan  he  may  on  these  braunches  here 
The  smale  briddes  syngen  clere 
Her  blesful  swete  song  pitous. 
And  in  this  sesoun  delytous, 
Whan  love  affraieth*  al  thing." 

Next,  the  description  of  Cryseyde  (Cressida)  : 

"Cryseyde  menef  was  of  hire  stature; 
Thereto  of  shap,  of  face,  and  ek  of  cheere, 
Ther  myghte  be  no  fairer  creature; 
And  ofte  tyme  this  was  hire  manere, 
To  gon  ytressed  with  hire  heres  clere 
Doun  by  hire  coler,  at  hire  back  byhynde, 
Which  with  a  threde  of  gold  she  wolde  bynde. 

"And,  save  hire  browes  joyneden  yfeere, 
Ther  nas  no  lakke  in  ought  I  kan  espien; 

*  Agitates.  t  Short. 


CHAUCER  169 

But  for  to  speken  of  hire  eyen  clere, 

Loo !  trewely  they  writen  that  hire  seyen, 

That  Paradys  stood  formed  in  hire  yen; 

And  with  hire  riche  beaute  everemore 

Strof  love  in  hire,  ay  whiche  of  hem  was  moore. 

"She  sobre  was,  ek  symple,  and  wyse  withalle. 
The  best  ynorissed  ek  that  mighte  be. 
And  goodely  of  hire  speche  in  general, 
Charytable,  estateliche,  lusty,  and  fre; 
Ne  neveremoo  ne  lakked  hire  pyte, 
Tendre  harted,  slidynge  of  corage; 
But  trewely  I  kan  not  telle  hire  age." 

— "Troylus  and  Cryseyde/'  bk.  v,  st.  ii6. 

We  have  crossed  six  centuries  from  the  earliest 
Anglo-Saxon  literature,  if  we  date  the  poem  of 
Beowulf  (as  there  seems  reason  to  do)  in  the  eighth 
century.  We  have  come  from  a  language  which 
suggests  English  but  is  so  unlike  it  that  the  modern 
English-speaking  man  must  read  it  with  grammar 
and  dictionary,  to  a  language  so  like  that  of  our 
own  day  that  we  only  smile  at  the  queer  spelling 
and  occasionally  look  up  an  obsolete  word.  We 
readily  see  that  "morwenynge"  is  "morning,"  that 
"sorwe"  is  "sorrow,"  that  "atte"  is  "at  the,"  and 
that  "natheless"  is  "nevertheless."  Many  of  the 
words  now  disused  are  recognizable.  "Quod"  is  still 
found  as  "quoth"  in  old  or  old-fashioned  poetry. 
In  Cowper's  "John  Gilpin"  we  read: 

"  'Good  lack !'  quoth  he, 
'Yet  bring  it  me,'  " 

and  every  schoolboy  knows  that  "quoth  he"  means 


170  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

''said  he";  "eke"  is  familiar  enough  as  meaning 
"also";  "wiste"  for  "know"  or  "knew"  is  common 
in  our  English  Bible,  though  there  spelled  "wist"; 
"eyre"  for  "air,"  "erthe"  for  "earth,"  "fendes"  for 
"fiends,"  "saugh"  for  "saw,"  are  easily  followed. 
We  note  the  craving  for  inflection  which  often  con- 
tracts the  pronoun  thou  into  a  mere  verb  ending, 
as  in  shaltow  for  "shalt  thou,"  "uHltouf'  for  "wilt 
thou"  etc.;  also  the  contraction  of  the  negative  ne 
("not")  into  one  form  with  the  verb,  as  niste  for 
ne  wisfe,  etc. ;  and  we  find  the  th,  which  we  know 
only  as  the  old  form  of  the  third  person  singular 
of  the  indicative,  used  as  the  ending  of  the  impera- 
tive, as  in  beeth  for  the  modern  be.  All  these  things 
are  easily  and  quickly  learned  by  mere  reading  of 
the  text,  with  occasional  help  of  a  marginal  note. 

As  to  the  spelling,  we  need  have  little  concern. 
The  authors  themselves  had  often  no  sure  standard. 
Numerous  words  had  been  roughly  shaped  in  the 
attempt  to  represent  in  writing  the  sounds  heard  in 
utterance.  The  same  author  in  the  same  poem  will 
often  spell  the  same  word  two  or  more  different 
ways,  as  in  Chaucer's  "Compleynte  to  His  Purse," 
already  quoted,  we  find  at  the  end  of  the  first  stanza 
ayeyne  (again)  and  mote  (must),  while  at  the  end 
of  the  second  stanza  the  same  words  are  given  as 
ageyne  and  moot. 

We  must  remember  that  inaccuracy  of  reproduc- 
tion did  not  originate  with  modern  stenographers 
and  typewriters.     The  ancient  manuscript-copyists 


CHAUCER  171 

were  great  sinners  in  this  respect.  In  the  manu- 
scripts of  Gower  that  he  has  examined,  Mr.  Morton 
W.  Eastman  remarks  :* 

"We  find  such  constantly  recurring  forms  as  astat  for 
estat,  wich  and  whas  for  which  and  was,  dishese  for 
disease,  Jubiter  for  Jupiter,  strenth  for  strength,  while 
world  and  word  are  so  frequently  interchanged  that 
wherever  either  fails  to  make  sense,  it  is  quite  safe  to 
substitute  the  other." 

Chaucer  writes  almost  in  despair  to  his  own 
private  secretary  or  "scrivener" : 

"Adam  Scrivener,  if  ever  it  thee  befalle 
Boece  or  Troilus  for  to  write  new, 
Under  thy  long  locks  thou  maist  have  the  scalle, 
Butf  after  my  making  thou  write  more  trew! 
So  oft  a  day  I  mote  they  werke  renev/, 
It  to  correct  and  eke  to  rubbe  and  natuoan  utnoaun 
And  all  is  thorow  thy  negligence  and  rape.":j: 

When  that  was  true  of  manuscripts  that  passed 
under  his  own  eye,  and  which  he  could  "correct, 
rubbe,  and  scrape,"  we  can  imagine  what  happened 
to  the  additional  copies  which  he  never  saw.  Then, 
when  printing  began,  we  know  that  Caxton  made 
some  changes  to  what  seemed  to  him  better  English, 
and  we  may  be  sure  that  typesetters  made  their 
average  complement  of  errors,  and  Chaucer  was  not 
there  to  read  the  proof.  The  only  approach  to 
accuracy  now   possible  is  by  comparing  the  best 

•  "Readings  in  Gower,"  p.  4.  t  Unless.  +  Reckless  haste. 


172  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

manuscripts,  and,  where  they  differ,  selecting  the 
reading  which  the  best  critical  judgment  believes  to 
be  probably  correct. 

;  The  pronunciation  of  English  in  Chaucer's  day 
is  now  unknown,  just  as  is  the  pronunciation  of 
ancient  Greek  or  of  classic  Latin.  Spoken  speech 
dies  with  its  utterance.  Professor  Lounsbury,  after 
careful  examination,  is  of  the  opinion  that  some 
real  progress  has  been  made  in  the  attempt  to  re- 
cover by  critical  methods  the  ancient  sounds  of 
Chaucerian  English.  But  he  expresses  himself  as 
very  doubtful — and  apparently  with  much  reason — 
of  the  utility  of  such  study  to  the  ordinary  student. 
When  the  English-speaking  reader  of  the  modern 
day  comes  to  Chaucer,  he  is  first  of  all  repelled 
by  the  antiquated  spelling.  This  removes  the  old 
poet  far  enough.  At  length  the  reader  learns  to 
understand  eyre  as  air,  sekc  as  sick,  morivenynge  as 
morning,  etc.  If  now  you  insist  that  he  must  learn 
a  new  and  strange  pronunciation,  that  most  vowels 
and  many  consonants  shall  have  sounds  quite  dif- 
ferent from  those  in  modern  English,  you  have 
made  the  old  poet  essentially  a  foreign  author,  with 
little  that  is  familiar  either  to  eye  or  ear.  But  the 
thing  to  be  desired  is  to  bring  these  early  poems  as 
near  as  possible  to  modern  English,  not  to  place 
them  as  far  as  possible  away. 

The  reader  who  has  not  time  for  a  critical  course 
of  Old  English  study  will  find  it  possible  to  read 
Chaucer  or  Gower,  Langland  or  Wyclif,  enjoyably 


CHAUCER  173 

by  the  simple  expedient  of  learning  when  to  sound 
and  when  to  pass  over  the  mute  e  at  the  end  of 
words.  Then  he  may  give  vowels  and  consonants 
substantially  the  same  sounds  as  in  modern  English. 
He  will  quickly  learn  that  in  some  instances  the 
sound  of  a  as  in  father,  for  instance,  is  preferable 
to  that  of  a  in  fate,  especially  in  words  of  French 
origin,  as  courage.  The  meter  will  show  him  that 
this,  and  certain  other  words,  are  to  be  accented  on 
the  last  syllable ;  thus  :  con-rage'  for  courage,  li-cour' 
for  liq'uor,  im-tnre'  for  na'ture,  ver-tue'  for  virtue. 
Yet  the  poet  freely  varies  these  accents  according 
to  the  exigencies  of  his  verse,  just  as  the  spelling 
is  often  varied  for  no  assignable  reason.  One  will 
do  well  to  remember,  also,  the  interchangeableness, 
already  referred  to,  of  w  and  v,  so  that  eueriche  is 
evericli  c — every. 

By  the  mastery  of  these  simple  items,  together 
with  a  little  practise,  without  attempting  to  be  too 
critical  or  scholarly,  the  ordinary  reader  will  be 
able  to  attain  a  skill  in  reading  aloud  the  Chaucerian 
poetry,  such  that  its  meaning  will  be  clearer  to  him.- 
self  than  when  he  confines  his  attention  to  the 
printed  page.  The  spelling  will  be  less  in  his  way. 
Also  he  will  be  able  to  make  the  reading  pleasant 
and  quite  readily  intelligible  to  others. 

This  method  may  not  meet  the  demands  of  the 
highest  scholarship,  but  it  will  be  useful  to  practical 
men  and  women  who  wish  to  get  from  this  ancient 
poetry  such  enjoyment  and  instruction  as  they  may. 


174  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

We  may  append  here  Skeat's  explication  of  the 
Chaucerian  meter  from  the  Introduction  to  his 
edition  of  Chaucer's  works : 

"A  metrical  analysis  of  the  first  few  lines  of  the 
Prologue,  in  which  examples  of  most  of  the 
peculiarities  of  inflexion  and  accentuation  alluded 
to  in  the  introduction  occur,  will,  it  is  hoped,  enable 
the  reader  to  conquer  any  difficulties  of  this  nature 
that  may  present  themselves  in  the  verse.  The 
principles  here  indicated  will  be  found  applicable 
throughout  the  poem.  This  is  Tyrwhitt's  plan;  but 
it  will  be  seen  that,  as  the  text  is  different  from  his, 
so  also  is  the  meter.  The  marks  of  long  and  short, 
properly  applied  to  the  classical  meters  only,  are 
here  used  as  being  plainer  than  an  accent  on  the 
accented  syllables : — 

'Whan  that  /  April  /  le  with  /  his  schow  /  res  sw5ote 
The  drought  /  of  Marche  /  hath  per  /  ced  t5  /  the  roote. 
And  ba  /  thud  eve  /  ry  veyne  /  in  swich  /  licour, 
Of  which  /  vertue  /  engen  /  dred  is  /  the  flour; 
Whan  Ze  /  phyrus  /  eek  with  /  his  swe  /  te  breeth 
Enspi  /  rud  hath  /  in  eve  /  ry  holte  /  and  heeth 
The  ten  /  dre  crop  /  pes,  and  /  the  yon  /  ge  sonne 
Hath  in  /  the  Ram  /  his  hal  /  fe  cours  /  i-r5nne. 
And  sma  /  le  fow  /  les  ma  /  ken  me  /  lodie, 
That  sle  /  pen  al  /  the  night  /  with  6  /  pen  yhe. 
So  prik  /  eth  hem  /  nature  /  in  here  /  corages : — 
Thanne  Ion  /  gen  folk  /  to  gon  /  on  pil  /  grimages,  &c.' 

"Here  the  final  c  in  Aprille,  swete,  halfe,  yonge, 
smale  is  pronounced;  but  it  is  quiescent  in  Marche, 
veyne,  nature,  because  in  these  cases  it  is  followed 
by  a  word  beginning  with  a  vowel,  or  with  the 
letter  h.  This  is  the  rule  of  French  poetry.  The 
final  es  is  pronounced  in  croppes,  fowles,  as  in  Ger- 


CHAUCER  175 

man.  The  French  words  licour,  nature,  corages 
are  accented  on  the  last  syllable  of  the  root,  as  in 
French.  The  reader  will  also  remark  the  old  forms 
of  hem  and  here,  for  them  and  their;  and  slepen, 
maken,  the  Anglo-Saxon  inflexion  of  the  infinitive 
and  plural  verb :  i-ronne  is  also  the  pret.  part,  of 
rennen,  to  run,  as  in  German,  gelobt,  from  lohen." 

Something  must  be  said  of  Chaucer's  vigorous 
prose,  in  which  the  reader  will  find  often  less  diffi- 
culty than  in  his  poetry,  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
he  will  miss  the  aid  afforded  in  the  poems  by  meter 
and  rime.  The  following  extract  is  selected  from 
the  "Parson's  Tale,"  and  should  be  read  in  connec- 
tion with  the  description  of  the  "poore  parson  of  a 
toun"  in  the  "Prologue  to  the  Canterbury  Tales" : 

DE  INVIDIA 

"After  pride  now  wol  I  speke  of  the  foule  synne  of 
envye,  which  that  is,  as  by  the  word  of  the  philosophre, 
sorwe  of  other  mennes  prosperite ;  and  after  the  word  of 
seint  Austyn,  is  it  sorwe  of  other  mennes  wele,  and  joye 

of  other  mennes  harm Certes  than  is  envye  the 

worste  synne  that  is;  for  sothely  alle  other  synnes  ben 
somtyme  oonly  agains  oon  special  vertu ;  but  certes  envye 
is  agayns  alle  vertues  and  agayns  al  goodness;  for  it  is 
sory  of  alle  the  bountees  of  his  neighbor;  and  in  this 
manner  it  is  divers  from  alle  the  synnes ;  for  wel  unnethe 
is  ther  any  synne  that  it  ne  hath  some  delit  in  itself,  sauf 
oonly  envye,  that  ever  hath  in  itself  anguisch  and  sorwe. 
The  spices  (species)  of  envye  ben  these.  There  is  firste 
sorwe  of  other  mennes  goodness  and  of  her  (their)  pros- 
perite; and  prosperite  is  kyndely  (naturally)  matier  of 
joye;  thanne  is  envye  a  synne  agayns  kynde  (nature). 
The  secounde  spice  (species)  of  envye  is  joye  of  other 
mennes  harm;  and  that  is  proprely  lik  to  the  devyl,  that 


176  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

ever  rejoyeth  him  of  mennes  harm.  Of  these  tuo  spices 
(species)  cometh  bakbyting;  and  this  synne  of  bakbyting 
or  detraccioun  hath  certein  spices  (species),  as  thus:  som 
man  praisith  his  neighbor  by  a  wickid  entent,  for  he 
makith  alway  a  wickid  knotte  atte  (at  the)  last  ende; 
alway  he  makith  a  but  at  the  last  ende,  that  is  thing  of 
more  blame  than  worth  is  al  the  praysing." 

This  closing  hit,  while  put  into  the  mouth  of  the 
"poore  parson,"  is  peculiarly  Chaucerian, — the 
"wickid  knotte  at  the  last  ende,"  the  "but''  that  is 
"thing  of  more  blame  than  worth  all  the  praising." 

To  what  period  of  English  literature  shall  the 
Chaucerian  English  be  assigned?  Shall  we  count 
Chaucer  as  the  last  of  the  ancient  or  the  first  of  the 
modern  writers?  He  is  too  English  to  be  classed 
with  the  Anglo-Saxons,  too  antiquated  to  be  ranged 
beside  the  writers  of  the  time  of  Elizabeth,  Anne 
or  Victoria. 

Eminent  scholars  have  attempted  various  divisions 
of  English  literature  into  periods,  and  almost  any 
one  of  these  divisions  might  be  useful  if  there  were 
no  other,  so  that,  when  we  should  name  any  period, 
all  students  of  English  literature  would  get  the 
same  idea  from  that  name.  Unfortunately  almost 
every  leading  scholar  has  objected  to  the  system  of 
his  predecessors  and  formulated  a  new  division  of 
his  own.  This  would  seem  to  indicate  that  no  one 
of  these  systems  is  founded  upon  anything  vital  or 
final.  The  following  summary  of  some  approved 
divisions  is  given  in  the  "Standard  Dictionary" : 


CHAUCER  177 

"There  arc  four  periods  of  the  history  of  the  English 
language:  (a)  The  period  from  the  earliest  Teutonic 
speech  in  England  (A.  D.  450  to  11 50),  the  Anglo-Saxon 
period;  lately  often  called  Old  English,  Oldest  English. 
It  was  the  period  of  full  inflection,  (b)  The  period  from 
A.  D.  1 150  to  A.  D.  1350,  called  Early  English,  during 
which  the  inflections  were  broken  up  (1150  to  1250)  and 
large  numbers  of  French  words  added  to  the  vocabulary 
(1250  to  1350).  (c)  The  period  from  1350  to  1485,  the 
Chaucer  period,  the  Old  English  of  literature,  now  often 
called  Middle  English,  in  which  the  Saxon  and  Norman 
elements  were  shaped  into  a  new  literary  language, 
(rf)  The  period  since  1485,  called  Modern  English,  of 
which  the  period  from  1485  to  161 1  is  called  Tudor 
English." 

On  studying  this  brief  statement,  we  find  that  the 
name  Old  English  is  applied  by  some  to  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  period  (450  to  11 50),  and  by  others  to  the 
period  of  Chaucer  (1150  to  1485), — periods  cen- 
turies apart.  Also  it  appears  that  still  others  call 
this  "Chaucer  period"  Middle  English.  But  Craik 
uses  Middle  English  as  designating  the  period  from 
1350  to  1530.  Hence  any  one  of  these  names  is 
useless,  unless  defined  for  the  occasion.  You  must 
know  in  which  sense  the  name  is  used  by  the  author 
you  are  reading  or  the  lecturer  to  whom  you  are 
listening;  so  that  one  is  reminded  of  the  criticism 
that  an  Ohio  horseman  passed  on  a  Texas  pony :  "I 
don't  like  a  horse  that  you  have  to  break  every  time 
you  hitch  him  up."  Transition  English,  proposed 
by  others,  is  a  very  alluring  term,  but  likewise  too 
variously  applied;  "transition"  is  always  progres- 
sive, and  who  shall  say  just  where  it  begins  and 
12 


178  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

ends?  The  attempt  is  like  that  of  dividing  the 
waters  of  a  river  according  to  its  velocity  at  different 
points.  Where  do  the  Rapids  of  Niagara  begin? 
We  can  locate  the  Falls,  the  source,  the  mouth  and 
certain  intervening  geographical  points.  So  the 
flowing  stream  of  literature  is  best  divided  by  cer- 
tain events,  authors  or  documents  so  conspicuous 
as  to  be  easily  remembered,  and  at  the  same  time 
so  connected  with  some  change  of  the  literature  in 
tone  and  type  as  to  mark  a  real  division.  Without 
attempting  a  minutely  critical  or  philological  division 
of  periods,  the  present  author  has  found  the  follow- 
ing to  be  a  convenient  memory-scheme  to  be  easily 
fixed  by  certain  prominent  events,  authors  or  docu- 
ments; thus  (holding  all  dates  to  round  numbers)  : 

Period 

1.  Anglo-Saxon  Conquest  to  the  death  of  Alfred  (450 

to  900). 

2.  Death  of  Alfred  to  end  of  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle 

(900-1150). 

3.  End  of  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  to  Proclamation  of 

Henry  HI  (i  150-1250), — one  hundred  years,  in- 
cluding Layamon  and  Orm. 

4.  Barren  Century  (1400-1525).    '  '  "  ^ 

5.  Chaucerian  period  (1350-1400) — Death  of  Chaucer. 

6.  Barren  Century    (1400  to   1526) — Tyndale's   New 

Testament. 

Chaucer  died  in  '400,  was  buried  in  Westminster 
Abbey,  and  was  the  first  to  occupy  a  tomb  in  what  is 
now  known  as  the  Poet's  Corner. 

Incidentally  it  may  be  remarked  that  the  student 


CHAUCER  179 

will  find  the  year  1400,  that  of  Chaucer's  death,  a 
most  convenient  date  to  remember.  Before  it  are 
to  be  ranged  at  brief  intervals  the  "Vision  of  Piers 
Plowman"  (1362)  ;  the  prose  treatises  and  tracts  of 
Wycklif  and  his  translation  of  the  Bible  (1377- 
1384)  ;  the  Peasants'  Revolt  (or  Wat  Tyler's  Re- 
bellion) of  1381,  and  the  accession  of  Henry  of 
Lancaster  as  Henry  IV  in  1399. 

The  close  of  the  great  poet's  life  occurred  nearly 
a  thousand  years  after  the  Anglo-Saxon  invaders 
first  landed  in  England;  fifty-five  years  before  the 
Wars  of  the  Roses  began;  eighty-five  years  before 
the  victory  of  Bos  worth  Field  placed  the  Duke  of 
Richmond  upon  the  throne  as  Henry  VH,  first  of 
the  Tudor  line  (1485)  ;  fifty-three  years  before  the 
capture  of  Constantinople  by  the  Turks  (1453), 
which,  by  scattering  the  Greeks  and  Greek  learning 
over  Europe,  did  so  much  to  usher  in  the  Renais- 
sance; ninety-two  years  before  the  discovery  of 
America  by  Columbus,  with  all  that  that  has  meant 
to  history  and  civilization ;  eighty-three  years  before 
the  birth  of  the  great  German  Reformer,  Martin 
Luther;  just  one  hundred  years  before  the  birth  of 
the  mighty  emperor  of  Germany  and  disturber  of 
the  world,  Charles  V.  Chaucer's  closeness  to  great 
Italian  authors  is  also  noticeable.  Dante,  who  died 
in  132 1,  was  to  him  a  modern  poet;  Boccaccio 
(1313-1375)  was  his  contemporary;  so  also  was 
Petrarch  (1304-1374),  whom  he  doubtless  visited 
at  Padua.     By  assembling  such  dates  we  are  no 


180  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

longer  surprized  that  the  English  of  Chaucer  seems 
old,  but  rather  that  it  seems  so  young,  with  a  morn- 
ing freshness,  after  the  lapse  of  more  than  five 
centuries. 

It  has  been  somewhat  common,  as  shown  in  the 
schemes  already  given,  to  sink  Chaucer  in  a  period 
of  Old  English  or  Middle  English  extending  from 
1350  to  1485.  But  the  latter  seems  an  artificial 
date.  Politically,  indeed,  the  accession  of  Henry 
VII,  as  first  of  the  Tudor  line,  was  of  vast  impor- 
tance, but  linguistically  it  is  scarcely  noticeable.  The 
English  style  immediately  preceding  it  is  in  no  way 
clearly  marked  off  from  that  whic-^  immediately 
follows,  for  there  is  no  English  authorship  worthy 
of  note  in  all  the  dreary  fifteenth  century,  nor,  in- 
deed, until  the  publication  of  Tyndale's  New  Testa- 
ment in  1526.  Through  that  troubled  time  England 
was  enduring  as  best  she  might,  but  not  creating. 
The  "Compendiums  of  English  Literature"  have 
been  most  unfortunate  in  bringing  into  Chaucer's 
train  a  procession  of  authors  whom  it  would  be 
flattery  to  call  commonplace.  The  student,  flounder- 
ing in  a  morass  of  mediocrities,  is  interested  in 
nothing  but  in  some  way  of  escape,  and  desires 
never  again  to  hear  of  "English  Literature."  Let 
oblivion  have  its  own.  Let  Chaucer's  great  epoch 
close  with  his  life  and  be  designated  by  his  name. 


VII 
THE  ENGLISH   BIBLE 


VII 

THE  ENGLISH   BIBLE 

From  Chaucer's  day  a  century  and  a  half  of 
stormy  national  life,  with  fierce  conflicts  at  home 
and  abroad,  produced  few  writings  that  are  now 
of  permanent  importance  to  the  English-speaking 
peoples.  The  works  that  then  appeared  are  for  the 
most  part  of  interest  to  the  scholar  who  has  time 
for  the  niceties  of  literature.  They  kept  the  lan- 
guage alive  as  the  circulating  system  keeps  the 
hibernating  animal  alive  through  a  long  winter. 
Sir  Thomas  More's  "Utopia,"  published  during  the 
reign  of  Henry  VIII  (1516),  is  a  book  of  immortal 
fame,  so  that  its  title  has  become  a  household  word. 
Lord  Berners'  translation  of  Froissart's  Chronicles 
(1525)  is  a  work  of  lasting  value.  Some  lovely 
passages  occur  in  the  poems  of  James  I  of  Scotland, 
who,  by  his  knowledge  of  English  acquired  during 
his  long  captivity  in  England,  may  be  ranked  as 
an  English  poet.  Sir  Thomas  Malory's  "Morte 
d' Arthur"  (1485)  holds  high  rank  as  a  reservoir 
for  writers  of  verse,  having  influenced  many 
eminent  poets  of  later  time.  Surrey  and  Wyatt 
permanently  influenced  the  form  of  later  English 
verse.  More  important  than  these,  the  beauty  and 
formative  power  of  the  English  translations  of  the 

183 


184  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

Scriptures  by  Tyndale  and  his  successors  became 
mighty  and  controlHng  influences  upon  our  lan- 
guage, reaching  on  through  the  Authorized  Version 
of  the  Scriptures  to  our  own  day. 

The  English  Bible  is  for  the  present  purpose  to 
be  considered  simply  as  literature.  No  question  of 
religion,  theology  or  doctrine  is  here  involved.  As 
a  part  of  English  literature  the  English  Bible  holds 
a  remarkable  and  commanding  position. 

"It  is  a  noteworthy  circumstance  in  the  history  of 
literature  of  Protestant  countries  that,  in  every  one  of 
them,  the  creation  or  revival  of  a  national  literature  has 
commenced  with,  or  at  least  been  announced  by,  a  transla- 
tion of  the  Scriptures  into  the  vernacular,  which  has  been 
remarkable  both  as  an  accurate  representative  of  the 
original  text  and  as  an  exhibition  of  the  best  power  of 
expression  possessed  by  the  language  at  that  stage  of  its 
development.  Hence,  in  all  these  countries,  these  versions 
have  had  a  very  great  influence,  not  only  upon  religious 
opinion  and  moral  training,  but  upon  literary  effort  in 
other  fields,  and  indeed  upon  the  whole  philological  history 
of  the  nation.  Thus  the  English  translation  of  the 
Wycliffite  school,  the  Danish  version  of  1550  and  the 
German  of  Luther  are,  linguistically  considered,  among 
the  very  best  examples  of  the  most  cultivated  phase  and 
most  perfected  form  of  their  respective  languages  at  the 
time  when  they  appeared." 
— Marsh,  "Origin  and  History  of  the  English  Language," 

lect.  viii,  p.  344. 

Of  the  books  to  be  read,  we  would  place  first  the 
English  Bible  in  the  authorized  version.  Hamilton 
W.  Mabie  characterizes  this  as  "a  library  of  sixty- 
six  volumes  presenting  nearly  every  literary  form, 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  185 

and  translated  at  the  fortunate  moment  when  the 
English  language  had  received  the  recent  impress 
of  its  greatest  masters  in  the  speech  of  the  imagina- 
tion." The  eminent  English  scholar,  Richard  Gar- 
nett,  remarks : 

"There  is  no  literature,  at  least  no  important  literature, 
so  largely  indebted  as  the  English  to  a  collection  of  writ- 
ings in  a  foreign  language,  produced  under  circumstances 
exceedingly  dissimilar  to  any  that  ever  existed  in  England, 
of  which  every  individual  author  is  not  merely  an  Oriental 
but  one  absolutely  estranged  by  blood  from  all  the  families 

which   have  combined   to   form  the   British   race 

There  is  no  other  example  of  a  literature  having  assim- 
ilated a   foreign  element   so   completely  to  itself 

[This  has  resulted  in]  an  elevation,  a  picturesqueness,  and 
an  affluence  of  beautiful  sentiment  which  confers  on  the 
literature  of  these  [English-speaking]  peoples  a  great  ad- 
vantage over  those  which,  whether  from  natural  incapacity 
or  the  impediments  created  by  sinister  interests,  have  been 
more  or  less  debarred  from  this  treasury  of  grandeur. 
All  modern  nations,  indeed,  have  borrowed  more  or  less 
from  the  Scriptures,  and  been  more  or  less  influenced  by 
them  as  literature,  but  the  Northern  nations  alone,  and 
more  particularly  the  British,  have  so  thoroughly  assimi- 
lated them  that  they  seem  to  have  naturalized  patriarchs 
and  prophets  as  their  own  countrymen." 
— Garnett  and  Gosse,  "English  Literature"  vol.  i,  ch.  7, 

p.  204. 

Far  back  in  the  early  days  appeared  an  Anglo- 
Saxon  translation  of  the  Gospels.  Of  this  Marsh 
says  :*  "We  know  not  the  history,  the  author,  nor 
the  precise  date  of  this  translation,  but  it  belongs 
to  the  best  period  of  the  literature,  and  was  made 

*  "Origin  and  History  of  the  English  Language,"  lect.  iii,  p.  96. 


186  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

from  the  [Latin]  Vulgate,  or  more  probably,  per- 
haps, from  some  nearly  similar  Latin  version." 

Skeat*  places  the  earlier,  the  "Corpus"  manu- 
script, as  made  before  icxdo  A.  D.,  and  the  later, 
the  "Hatton"  manuscript,  with  somewhat  changed 
idiom,  after  1150  A.  D. 

The  following  selection,  containing  the  Parable 
of  the  Sower,  will  give  an  adequate  idea  of  this 
translation  of  nine  hundred  years  ago : 

Anglo-Saxon   Translation   of  the  Gospels — 

Corpus  Manuscript  (before  iooo  a.  d.) 

Matthew  xiii 

1.  On  tham  daege  tham  haelende  ut-gangendum  of 

huse  he  saet  with  tha  sae. 

2.  &  mycle  maenigeo  waeron  gesamnode  to  hym 

swa  that  he  eode  on  scyp  &  thaer  saet,  and  call 
seo  maenigeo  stod  on  tham  waronhe. 

3.  &  he  spraec  to  hym  fela  big-spellum,  cwethende; 

Sothlice    ut-eode    se    saedere    hys    saed    to 
sawenne ; 

4.  &  tha  tha  he  seovi^,  sume  hig  feollen  with  weg,  & 

f uglas  comun  &  aeton  tha ; 

5.  Sothlice   sume    feollen   on    staenihte    thaer   hyt 

naefde  mycle  eorthan.    &  hraedlice  upsprungon 
for-tham  the  hig  naefton  thaere  eorthan  dypan ; 

6.  Sothlice    upsprungenre    sunnan    adruwudon    & 

forscruncon,   for  tham  the  hig  naefdon  wyr- 
trum. 

7.  Sothlice  sume  feollon  on  thornas,  &  tha  thornas 

weoxon  &  for-thrysmudon  tha. 

*  W.   W.    Skeat,    "The   Holy   Gospels  in   Anglo-Saxon." 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  187 

8.  sums  sothlice  feollon  on  gode  eorthan  &  seal- 

don  waestm.     sum  hund-fealdne,   sum  sixtig 
fealdne,  sum  thrittig  fealdne. 

9.  Se  the  haebbe  earan  to  gehyrenne  gehyre. 

We  do  not  know  to  what  extent  this  Anglo-Saxon 
version  was  circulated  nor  what  influence  it  may 
have  had.  The  fact  that  it  was  made,  however, 
tells  of  an  early  demand,  and  its  preservation  for 
so  long  a  period  indicates  that  it  was  not  without 
effect.  It  is  remarkable  that  this  ancient  version 
can  be  read  with  so  little  difficulty  now.  This  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  all  the  later  English  translations 
of  the  Scriptures  have  continued  to  use  so  large  a 
percentage  of  Anglo-Saxon  words,  which  have  thus 
become  an  indestructible  part  of  English  speech. 

/Elfric,  the  indefatigable  scholar  (about  925- 
1020),  is  sometimes  credited  with  a  translation  of 
the  Bible  into  English.  But  this  was  not  strictly 
a  translation,  and  not  all  his  own. 

"^Ifric,  thus  urged  (by  thegn  Aethelward)  translated 
Genesis  up  to  chapter  xxiv.  The  rest,  as  far  as  the  end 
of  Leviticus,  was  not  his  doing.  He  also  translated  Num- 
bers, Deuteronomy,  Joshua,  the  book  of  Judges  (but  that 
may  be  a  later  insertion),  and  the  books  of  Esther,  of 
Job,  and  of  Judith.  All  of  them,  except  the  Genesis,  are 
not  literal  translations.  Difficult  passages,  and  others  not 
likely  to  interest  the  English  people,  are  omitted.  Some 
books,  like  Judges,  are  put  into  a  homiletic  form.  Others 
might  be  described  as  heroic  sketches  of  the  lives  of  the 
heroes  and  Kings  of  Israel.  ^Ifric  strives  to  paint  them 
in  vivid  colors,  to  sharpen  their  individuality;  it  was  an 
efifort  he  made  to  interest  the  people  in  Jewish  history." 
— Stopford  a.  Brooke^  "History  of  English  Literature 

to  the  Norman  Conquest,"  ch.  17,  p.  283. 


188  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

/Elfric  was  a  monk,  and  held  strenuously  to  the 
opinion  that  prevailed  for  a  long  time  after  the 
Reformation  that  the  common  people  could  not  be 
trusted  to  read  the  Scriptures  without  note  or  com- 
ment for  themselves.  Hence  he  took  the  short 
method  of  omitting  "many  subtle  points,  which 
ought  not  to  be  laid  open  to  the  laity."  His  so- 
called  "translation"  may  therefore  be  dismissed 
without  further  consideration. 

The  first  translation  of  the  Bible  as  a  whole  into 
English,  as  distinguished  from  Anglo-Saxon,  was 
that  of  Wyclif  during  the  great  awakening  of  En- 
glish life  and  the  formative  period  of  English  litera- 
ture in  the  Chaucerian  epoch,  at  the  close  of  the 
fourteenth  century. 

John  Wyclif  was  born  in  1324.  At  sixteen  he 
entered  Oxford,  where  he  distinguished  himself  in 
logic  and  theology  and  was  elected  Master  of  Balliol 
College  in  that  great  seat  of  learning,  receiving 
what  was  then  the  exalted  degree  of  Doctor  of 
Divinity.  He  held  many  important  posts,  and 
gained  great  eminence  and  authority  as  the  fore- 
most English  scholar  of  his  day. 

The  period  was  still  in  the  Middle  Ages,  which 
are  commonly  reckoned  from  the  downfall  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  in  A.  D.  476,  to  the  capture  of  Con- 
stantinople by  the  Turks  in  1453 — almost  a  thou- 
sand years.  The  organized  church  had  reached 
perhaps  the  lowest  depth  of  corruption.  The  monas- 
teries, originally  designed  as  the  retreats  of  poor 


THE  ENGLISH   BIBLE  189 

and  devout  men  who  should  live  simply,  working 
with  their  hands  and  devoting  their  lives  only  to 
spiritual  service  in  this  world  and  the  hope  of  eter- 
nal life  beyond,  had  become,  by  the  gifts  of  kings 
and  barons,  immensely  wealthy,  holding  great  tracts 
of  the  fairest  lands  in  England.  With  wealth  and 
idleness  had  come  the  corruption  of  character  that 
always  attends  that  condition,  under  whatever  name. 
It  came  to  the  idle  monks  of  the  Middle  Ages  as 
surely  as  to  idle  sons  of  millionaires  to-day. 

Good  and  devout  men  were  still  within  the  fold 
of  the  church,  but  they  were,  for  the  most  part, 
in  humble  stations,  having  neither  the  heart  nor  the 
art  to  seek  the  high  places  by  the  unworthy  means 
then  requisite  for  winning  them.  Such  a  one 
Chaucer  depicts — the  only  deeply  religious  man  he 
brings  before  us — in  the  "pore  Persone  (parson) 
of  a  toun" : 

"But  riche  he  was  of  holy  thought  and  werk. 
He  was  also  a  lerned  man,  a  clerk, 
That  Cristes  gospel  trewly  wolde  preche; 
His  parischens  devoutly  wolde  he  teche. 
Benygne  he  was,  and  wonder  diligent. 
And  in  adversite  full  pacient. 

Wyd  was  his  parisch  and  houses  fer  asondur, 

But  he  ne  lafte  nat  for  reyne  ne  thondur, 

In  siknesse  ne  in  meschief  to  visite 

The    ferrest    (farthest)    in   his   parissche,   moche   and 

lite  (little,  i.  e.  Humble), 
Uppon  his  feet  and  in  his  hond  a  staf. 
This  noble  ensample  to  his  scheep  he  gaf, 
That  ferst  he  wroughte,  and  after  that  he  taughte." 


190  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

But  such  true  men,  where  they  were  found, 
worked  under  hindrance  that  we  can  scarcely  under- 
stand, for  they  were  teaching  people  who  had  no 
Bible.  The  Scriptures  were  then  only  to  be  found 
in  the  Latin  translation,  called  the  Latin  Vulgate, 
which  few  except  the  clergy,  and  not  all  of  the 
clergy  of  that  day,  could  read.  Let  any  Christian 
worker  of  to-day  try  to  imagine  what  it  would  be 
now,  in  church  and  Sunday-school  and  personal 
work,  to  have  only  a  Latin  Bible. 

Wyclif  was  not  what  we  should  call  a  Protestant. 
To  the  time  of  his  death  he  considered  himself  a 
faithful  Roman  Catholic.  He  was  simply  seeking 
to  purify  the  church  from  its  abuses,  and  bring  it 
back  to  the  New  Testament  ideal.  In  so  doing  he 
came  into  conflict  with  a  corrupt  hierarchy.  They 
had  power  and  influence  enough  to  have  him  re- 
moved from  his  place  at  the  University  of  Oxford, 
and  he  himself  became  a  "poor  parson  of  a  town" — 
the  town  of  Lutterworth.  Nothing  could  have  been 
better  for  his  enduring  influence.  He  turned  from 
the  universities  and  the  priesthood  to  the  people. 
He  made  all  England  his  parish.  The  numerous 
tracts  which  he  issued  in  the  language  of  the  common 
people  have  been  already  referred  to.*  As  he  then 
wrote  directly  to  and  for  the  people,  he  was  training 
himself  in  the  language  of  the  people.  Their  words 
and  forms  of  speech  were  becoming  natural  to  him. 

*  "Chaucerian  English,"  ch.   5,  p.   148. 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  191 

He  was  learning  to  think  not  in  Latin,  as  in  his 
university  days,  but  in  English. 

In  his  controversy  with  the  ecclesiastical  authori- 
ties he  had  come  to  see  how  many  of  the  evils  and 
errors  he  attacked  had  arisen  from  neglect  or  per- 
version of  the  teaching  of  the  Scriptures.  He  saw 
the  need  of  a  power  greater  than  his  own  writings 
or  sermons,  or  the  preaching  of  his  earnest  disciples, 
whom  their  enemies  called  ''Lollards."  The  people 
must  themselves  have  the  Scriptures,  and  not  depend 
upon  the  teaching  of  any  man,  priest  or  layman. 
This  was  well,  for  many  of  the  theories  of  Wyclif 
himself  were  such  as  thoughtful  Christian  men  of 
later  times  have  not  been  able  to  accept.  It  is  fortu- 
nate that  he  did  not  found  a  Wycliflte  church.  But 
he  was  great  enough  to  go  beyond  himself.  He 
saw  clearly  the  narrow  limit  of  one  man's  working 
life,  especially  in  that  day  of  persecution.  He 
calmly  writes,  ''Ut  sim  comhiistione  vel  alia  morte 
extinctus,"  "That  I  may  die  by  fire  or  by  other  form 
of  death."  He  must  give  England  the  Bible  to 
read.  So,  in  his  quiet  rectory  of  Lutterworth,  with 
a  few  trusted  assistants,  this  proscribed  man,  this 
busy  pastor,  set  himself  to  render  the  whole  Bible 
into  the  language  of  the  common  people  of  England. 
How  much  of  this  work  was  done  by  his  own  hand 
it  is  of  course  impossible  to  ascertain,  but  all  was 
under  his  own  supervision.  Soon  after  his  death  his 
curate  and  assistant  in  translation,  John  Purvey, 
issued  (in  1388)  a  revision  of  the  work  in  the  en- 


192  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

deavor  to  make  the  English  more  idiomatic,  and 
certainly  succeeded  in  improving  the  style  at  many 
points,  as  Wyclif  himself  might  have  done  had  he 
lived  to  have  the  opportunity.  But  whether  as  first 
issued  by  him  or  as  thus  amended,  the  translation 
remains  Wyclif's  Bible  and  his  own  noblest  monu- 
ment, the  first  rendering  of  the  entire  Christian 
Scriptures  into  the  English  tongue. 

The  date  was  long  before  the  invention  of  the  art 
of  printing,  nearly  one  hundred  years  before  the 
introduction  of  printing  into  England,  so  that  every 
copy  of  the  Wyclif  version  had  to  be  laboriously 
transcribed  by  hand,  and  the  Bible  was  very  ex- 
pensive. Some  authorities  give  the  cost  of  a  com- 
plete copy  as  thirty  pounds,  or  $150,  then  equivalent 
to  a  much  larger  sum  of  modern  money.  Others 
make  a  Bible  equal  in  value  to  "a  load  of  hay."  The 
difference  in  price  was  doubtless  due  to  the  differ- 
ence in  the  quality  of  manuscripts,  those  of  costly 
material,  with  illuminated  capitals,  etc.,  being  very 
expensive,  while  smaller  copies  on  ordinary  material 
were  comparatively  cheap.  Yet  even  the  expense  of 
"a  load  of  hay"  would  be  considerable  for  the 
farmer  or  workingman.  Nevertheless,  such  prices 
were  freely  paid,  and  we  find,  also,  that  arrange- 
ments were  made  among  the  people  to  pay  a  stipu- 
lated sum  for  the  loan  of  the  precious  volume  one 
hour  a  day.  There  was  a  kind  of  circulating  library 
for  the  Bible.  The  extended  circulation  of  the  book 
is  shown  also  by  the  rigorous  measures  enforced  for 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  193 

its  suppression.  During  the  repeated  persecutions 
any  copy  that  could  be  found  was  promptly  burnt. 
Wyclif's  Bible  was  not  printed  until  1850,  when 
170  manuscripts  which  had  survived  the  centuries 
were  carefully  collected  and  compared.  It  is  con- 
sidered remarkable  that,  in  spite  of  the  organized 
system  of  destruction,  so  many  as  170  manuscripts 
should  have  survived  500  years, — a  fact  showing 
how  widely  circulated  the  volume  must  once  have 
been.  Of  these  manuscripts  only  a  few  are  such 
as  would  have  been  used  by  the  wealthy.  "The 
large  majority  are  of  pocket  size,  and  were  obviously 
intended  for  common  folk  and  for  daily  use." 

As  a  specimen  of  the  style  of  this  first  English 
version  of  the  Scriptures  we  may  give  the  transla- 
tion of  the  Parable  of  the  Soiver: 

Wyclif's  Translation — Matthew  xiii,  i-q.* 

1.  In  that  day  Jhesus  going  out  of  the  hous,  sat  besidis 

the  see. 

2.  And  manye  cumpanyes  of  peple  ben  gadrid  to  hym,  so 

that  he  steying  vp  in  a  boot  sat ;  and  al  the  cumpanye 
stode  in  the  brynke. 

3.  And  he  spak  to  hem  many  thingis  in  parablis,  seiyinge, 

Loo !  he  that  sowith  goth  out  to  sowe  his  seed. 

4.  And  the  while  he  soweth,  sum  felden  beside  the  weye, 

and  briddes  of  the  eyre  camen,  and  eeten  hem. 

5.  Sothely  other  seedis   felden  into  stoony  placis,  wher 

thei  hadden  nat  moche  erthe;  and  anoon  thei  ben 
sprungen  up,  for  thei  hadde  nat  depnesse  of  erthe. 

6.  Sothely  the  sunne  sprung  up,  thei  swaliden,  or  hrenden 

for  hete,  and  for  thei  hadden  nat  roote,  thei  drieden 
vp- 

*  From  the  edition  of  Forshall  and  Madden,  Oxford,  1850. 
13 


194  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

7.  Forsothe  other  seedis  felden  amonge  thornis;  and  the 

thornis  wexen  vp,  and  strangliden  hem. 

8.  But  other  seedis   felden  in  to  good  lond,  and  zaven 

fruyt;   sume   an  hundred   fold,   another   sexti    fold, 
another  thritti  fold. 

9.  He  that  hath  eris  of  heerynge,  heere  he. 

It  will  be  found  interesting  to  compare  this  with 
the  Anglo-Saxon  version  previously  given  of  the 
same  text.  For  instance,  in  verse  2,  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  has  maen'igeo,  a  "gathering  of  many,"  where 
Wyclif  uses  the  word  derived  from  the  Latin 
through  the  Norman-French,  citmpanyes,  or  "com- 
panies"; again,  in  verse  3,  the  Anglo-Saxon  has 
big-spellum,  "by-stories,"  i.  e.,  stories  with  a  side 
meaning;  for  which  Wyclif  uses  the  term  derived 
from  the  Greek  through  the  Latin,  parablis,  our 
"parables." 

The  following  specimens  may  well  be  added : 

Wyclif's  Bible — Genesis  i,  i. 

"In  the  first  made  God  of  nought  heaven  and  earth. 
The  earth,  forsooth,  was  vain  within  and  void,  and 
darknessis  weren  upon  the  face  of  the  see.  And  the 
spirit  of  God  was  born  upon  the  waters.  And  God  said, 
Be  made  light,  and  made  is  light.  And  God  saw  light  that 
it  was  good,  and  divided  light  fro  darkness,  and  clepide 
light  day  and  darkness  night.  And  made  is  even  and  morn 
one  day." 

The  Lord's  Prayer — Matthew  vi. 

"Our  Fadir  that  art  in  heuenes,  halwid  be  thi  name, 
thi  kingdom  come  to,  be  thi  wille  done,  as  in  heven,  so  in 
earth;  gif  to  us  this  day  oure  breed  or  other  substance; 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  195 

and  forgeue  to  us  oure  dettis  as  we  forgeue  to  our  det- 
tours,  and  leede  us  not  into  temptacioun,  but  deliuere  us 
from  yuel." 

(It  is  to  be  noted  that,  before  1580,  the  letters 
u  and  V  and  also  i  and  /  were  continually  and  freely 
interchanged.) 

Wyclif's  Bible,  as  the  selections  above  given  show, 
can  still  be  read  without  great  difficulty  to-day, 
though  occasionally  an  obsolete  word  must  be  looked 
up,  and  the  whole  style*  seems  quaint  and  queer, 
especially  in  its  antiquated  spelling.  As  remarked 
in  the  case  of  Chaucer,*  much  of  this  difficulty  will 
be  removed  by  reading  aloud,  when  many  forms 
sound  natural  and  familiar  that  look  strange  and 
uncouth  on  the  printed  page. 

From  the  manuscript  Bible  of  WycHf  (1384- 
1388)  to  the  printed  New  Testament  of  Tyndale 
(1526),  we  pass  over  a  period  of  almost  a  century 
and  a  half.  Wonderful  things  had  happened  in  that 
hundred  and  fifty  years.  The  revival  of  learning 
had  come  upon  the  nations, — often  called  the  Renais- 
sance, or  new  birth  of  civilization.  Of  this  one 
author  writes : 

"Contrasted  with  medievalism,  the  Renaissance  is  like 
a  bright,  fresh  morning  after  a  close  and  suhry  night.  It 
represents  the  change  in  men's  views  from  asceticism  to 
freedom  and  humanity;  from  the  monastery  to  the  col- 
lege ;  from  a  civilization  based  on  feudalism,  and  educated 
by  the  Latin  church,  to  a  civilization  educated  by  science, 

*  "Chaucer,"  ch.  6,   p.    173. 


196  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

and  based,  within  the   restrictions  of  nationaHty,  on  a 
spiritual  intercommunity  of  ideas  and  interests. 

"In  the  wake  of  the  literary  revival  by  which  this 
great  movement  was  ushered  in,  there  arose  that  wonder- 
ful spirit  of  adventure  and  of  maritime  discovery  under 
whose  influence  the  borders  of  the  earth  were  pushed 
back  and  the  edifice  of  patristic  geography  shattered  to 
pieces.  In  1492,  Columbus,  with  the  aid  of  the  mariners' 
compass,  discovered  the  New  World.  In  1497  Vasco  de 
Gama  rounded  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  In  1520  Magellan 
circumnavigated  the  globe.  The  year  1543  is  the  year  of 
the  death  of  Copernicus,  whose  reading  of  the  riddle  of 
the  sky  was  soon  to  revolutionize  the  whole  science  of 
astronomy,  and  with  it  man's  ideas  of  his  physical  position 
in  the  universe." 

The  discovery  of  printing  had  come  in;  and  about 
1476  Caxton  had  set  up  his  press  at  Westminster, 
which  multiplied  copies  of  books,  and,  by  using  the 
style  of  English  adopted  by  Chaucer  and  Wyclif, 
exerted  a  vast  influence  toward  making  that  the 
recognized  and  permanent  form  of  the  English 
language. 

Meanwhile  what  seemed  at  the  time  the  vast  mis- 
fortune of  the  capture  of  Constantinople  by  the 
Turks,  in  1453,  had  driven  the  Greeks,  with  their 
grand  language — the  language  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment— and  their  choice  stores  of  ancient  learning, 
all  over  Europe.  The  study  of  Greek  was  taken  up 
at  Oxford  as  at  all  other  leading  universities  of  the 
western  world.  Erasmus,  that  easy-going  reformer 
who  did  so  much  more  than  he  meant  to  do,  pub- 
lished his  edition  of  the  Greek  Testament,  imperfect 
in  many  ways,  yet  enabling  scholars  to  go  back  to 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  197 

the  very  words  of  the  Apostles,  instead  of  reading 
them  only  as  translated  in  the  Latin  Vulgate.  But 
that  period  had  been  almost  an  absolute  blank  in 
English  literature.  Creative  power  seems  to  have 
expired  at  the  death  of  Chaucer.  The  disturbed  con- 
ditions under  Henry  IV  were  unfavorable  to  litera- 
ture, and  the  fierce  persecutions  of  the  followers 
of  Wyclif,  the  so-called  Lollards,  both  by  him  and 
his  son,  tended  to  repress  that  freedom  of  thought 
without  which  literature  never  flourishes.  The  suc- 
cessful attempt  under  Henry  V  to  win,  and  the  vain 
attempt  under  Henry  VI  to  hold,  the  conquest  of 
France,  were  a  drain  upon  the  resources  and  the 
energies  of  England  up  to  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  when  the  devastating  Wars  of  the  Roses 
began,  lasting  till  near  its  close.  When  these  civil 
contests  were  ended  at  the  accession  of  the  house  of 
Tudor  under  Henry  VII,  the  mentality  of  the  nation 
seems  to  have  settled  into  the  apathy  of  exhaustion, 
well  content  to  rest  and  trade  and  repair  the  waste 
of  war.  Intellectually  England  had  not  awakened 
to  the  Renaissance. 

The  New  Testament  of  Tyndale  (1526)  is  the 
first  live  thing  in  the  new  literature  after  Chaucer's 
day, — the  first  that  rises  above  the  level  of  the  com- 
monplace. Spenser  and  Sidney  were  not  yet  born. 
More's  "Utopia,"  written  in  Latin  in  15 16,  was  not 
put  into  English  until  1551.  The  commonplace  had, 
indeed,  done  valuable  service.  Through  the  various 
publications  of  Caxton's  press;  through  translations 


198  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

from  the  French  and  ItaHan  by  men  who  had  no 
originality;  through  the  communication  of  trade, 
statesmanship  and  war;  through  the  sermons  of 
faithful  divines,  and  through  the  widely  circulated 
controversial  tracts,  often  bitter,  but  always  vig- 
orous, had  been  evolved  a  new  type  of  English 
speech,  strong,  vigorous,  simple  and  above  all  things 
practical,  ready  for  noble  use  whenever  a  genius 
should  appear  to  test  its  power. 

William  Tyndale  was  a  linguistic  genius.  Born 
in  Gloucestershire  sometime  between  1490  and  1495, 
he  entered  Oxford  in  15 10  and  then  took  his  degree 
of  Master  of  Arts  in  15 15.  He  removed  to  Cam- 
bridge, where  Erasmus  had  helped  to  establish  a 
reputation  for  Greek  and  theology.  He  was  or- 
dained to  the  priesthood  in  1521,  and  became  for 
two  years  a  private  chaplain  and  domestic  tutor  in 
a  private  family  of  Gloucestershire,  preaching  at 
intervals  in  various  villages  and  at  Bristol.  Whence 
and  how  did  he  gain  his  wonderful  erudition  in 
those  thirteen  years?  He  was  soon  recognized  as 
a  man  of  profound  scholarship.  It  was  said  of  him 
by  one  of  the  foremost  scholars  of  his  day  that  he 
was  "so  skilled  in  seven  languages — Hebrew,  Greek, 
Latin,  Italian,  French,  Spanish  and  English — that 
whichever  he  spoke  you  would  suppose  it  to  be  his 
native  tongue."  "He  had  a  pure  and  reverent  heart; 
he  was  a  sound  scholar;  and  he  was  endowed  with 
that  rare  natural  gift,  a  delicate  sense  of  language." 
Withal  he  had  gained  a  mastery  of  the  then  half- 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  199 

formed  English  style,  so  that  he  could  not  only  use 
it  effectively  but  lift  it  to  a  height  of  power  and 
beauty  that  it  had  never  known  before.  How  rare 
such  an  attainment  is  every  student  of  linguistic 
works  knows  well,  for  masters  of  foreign  languages 
are  commonly  most  forlorn  and  helpless  in  using 
their  own.  The  only  man  to  be  compared  with 
Tyndale  in  such  achievement  is  that  missionary  of 
three  centuries  later,  William  Carey,  w^o  learned 
languages  on  the  cobbler's  bench  and  in  a  humble 
parsonage,  and  who  before  his  death  had  translated 
the  entire  Bible,  or  portions  of  it,  into  forty  lan- 
guages and  dialects  of  India,  besides  preparing 
grammars  and  dictionaries  in  various  languages  and 
dialects. 

With  this  innate  endowment  is  to  be  remarked 
Tyndale's  sublime  confidence  that  he  could  give 
England  the  entire  Bible  in  the  English  tongue  if 
but  allowed  the  opportunity.  It  was  while  but  a 
private  chaplain  that  in  a  dispute  with  a  hostile  critic 
he  uttered  the  memorable  words,  "If  God  spare  my 
life,  ere  many  years  I  will  cause  that  a  boy  that 
driveth  the  plow  shall  know  more  of  the  Scriptures 
than  thou  dost."  There  was  his  ideal, — a  people's 
Bible,  in  the  people's  English,  to  be  understood  by 
the  "boy  that  driveth  the  plow."  He  had  no  doubt 
of  his  ability  to  do  this.  To  him  apparently  nothing 
seemed  easier,  "if,"  as  he  said,  "God  spare  my  life," 
than  to  render  into  English — whether  from  the 
Hebrew  or  the  Greek  it  mattered  not — first  one  book 


200  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

of  the  Bible,  then  another  and  another,  till  all  was 
done.  The  work  of  genius  always  seems  simple 
and  natural  to  the  man  who  does  it.  Others  are  left 
to  wonder  at  it.  Tyndale's  genius  was  concentrated 
upon  a  single  object.  Somehow  there  had  come  to 
him  the  conviction  that  his  lifework  was  to  give  to 
the  English  people  the  Scriptures  in  their  own 
tongue.  It  was  perhaps  by  his  intense  religious 
earnestness  acting  upon  his  conscious  ability  as  a 
translator.  Once  formed,  his  purpose  was  unchange- 
able, unbreakable. 

In  1523  he  gave  up  his  chaplaincy  and  went  to 
London,  hoping  to  secure  the  aid  and  patronage  of 
the  great  authorities  of  the  church  for  the  work 
he  had  undertaken.  He  was,  however,  very  coldly 
received.  The  church  as  a  body  was  not  ready  to 
make,  or  even  to  welcome,  a  new  version  of  the 
Scriptures.  Tyndale  lived  on  for  a  year  in  the 
metropolis  in  poverty  and  hardship,  till  he  came 
definitely  to  understand  that  no  English  churchman 
would  favor,  and  that  no  English  printer  would 
dare  to  publish,  his  Bible.  "I  understood,"  he  says, 
"that  not  only  was  there  no  place  in  my  Lord 
(Bishop)  of  London's  palace  to  translate  the  New 
Testament,  but  also  that  there  was  no  place  to  do 
it  in  all  England." 

Here  a  self-seeking  or  a  timid  man  would  have 
stopped.  Tyndale,  however,  was  a  man  of  different 
mold.  He  deeply  believed  that  the  Bible  was  the 
very  Word  of  God  necessary  to  make  men  wise  unto 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  201 

salvation.  He  had  the  learning  and  ability  to  make 
the  translation,  and  to  that  sacred  work  he  was 
willing  to  give  his  life,  either  through  toilsome  years 
or  by  a  martyr's  death.  This  quiet  scholar  had  a 
hero's  courage.  Indomitable  as  Wyclif  before  him, 
he  decided  to  face  the  sorrows,  hardships  and  dan- 
gers of  exile  that  he  might  send  back  an  English 
Bible  to  the  land  to  which  he  could  not  return. 
In  the  year  1524  he  left  London  for  Hamburg.  In 
1525  his  New  Testament  was  ready  for  the  printers, 
and  he  went  to  the  cathedral  city  of  Cologne  to  see 
it  through  the  press.  But  even  here  he  was  not 
safe.  A  spy  discovered  that  the  crime  of  printing 
an  English  New  Testament  was  in  progress  in  the 
German  city,  and  the  lone  exile  was  obliged  to  pack 
up  his  manuscripts  and  printed  sheets  and  flee  with 
all  haste.  He  was  so  fortunate  as  to  arrive  safely 
at  Worms,  where  four  years  previously,  in  1521, 
Martin  Luther,  in  the  face  of  the  assembled  dig- 
nitaries of  church  and  state  and  of  the  young  and 
arrogant  emperor,  Charles  V,  had  made  his  re- 
nowned declaration  of  religious  independence.  Ger- 
many had  risen  to  new  life  at  Luther's  appeal,  and 
the  city  of  Worms  was  now  strongly  Lutheran. 
Here,  at  last,  in  the  year  1 526,  three  thousand  copies 
of  the  English  New  Testament  were  printed. 

The  following  extract  from  Tyndale's  translation 
of  the  Parable  of  the  Sower  (Matt,  xiii,  1-9)  may  be 
compared  with  Wyclif 's  translation  (p.  193)  and  with 
the  Anglo-Saxon  Version  of  the  Gospels  (p.  186). 


202  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

1.  The  same  daye  went  Jesus  out  off  the  housse,  and  sat 

by  the  see  syde. 

2.  And  moch  people  resorted  unto  him,  so  gretly  that  he 

went  and  sat  in  a  shyppe,  and  all  the  people  stode 
on  the  shoore. 

3.  And  he  spake  many  thyngs  to  them  in  similituds,  say- 

inge :  Beholde  the  sower  went  forth  to  sowe ; 

4.  And  as  he  sowed,  some  fell  by  the  wayes  syde,  and  the 

fowlls  cam  and  devoured  it  uppe. 

5.  Some  fell  apon  stony  grounde,  where  it  had  not  moche 

erth,  and  a  non  it  spronge  vppe,  because  it  had  no 
depht  off  erth. 

6.  And  when  the  sun  was  vppe,  hit  cauth  heet,  and  for 

lake  off  rotynge  wyddred  awaye. 

7.  Some  fell  amonge  thornes,  and  the  thornes  arose  and 

chooked  it. 

8.  Parte   fell  in  goode  grunde,  and  brought  forth  good 

frute:  some  an  hundred  fold,  some  fifty  fold,  some 
thyrty  folde. 

9.  Whosoever  hath  eares  to  heare,  let  him  heare. 

— From  Facsimile  by  Francis  Fry,  F.  S.  A.,  Bristol,  1862. 

The  remainder  of  Tyndale's  life  may  be  briefly 
told.  In  the  ten  years  following  the  publication  of 
his  New  Testament  he  published,  in  1530,  a  transla- 
tion of  the  Pentateuch  and  completed  the  translation 
of  the  historical  books  of  the  Old  Testament  from 
Joshua  to  Second  Chronicles,  which,  however,  he 
did  not  live  to  publish.  He  also  completed  and  pub- 
lished in  1534  a  corrected  edition  of  his  New  Testa- 
ment, which,  by  the  minute  examination  and  care 
(required,  must  have  been  a  very  laborious  work. 
He  was  still  busily  engaged  in  his  work  upon  the 
Old  Testament  when,  in  the  year  1535,  he  was 
treacherously  enticed  into  the  power  of  his  enemies. 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  203 

taken  to  the  castle  of  Vilvoord,  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Brussels,  and  kept  a  prisoner  till  1536,  when  he 
was  strangled  and  his  body  burnt  at  the  stake.  His 
last  recorded  words  at  his  martyrdom  were,  "Lord, 
open  the  King  of  England's  eyes!"  He  had  given 
his  very  life  to  give  England  the  Bible — "faithful 
unto  death." 

Tyndale's  work  had  been  intensely  individual. 
Wyclif  had,  in  a  manner,  been  driven  into  his  trans- 
lation as  the  natural  outcome  of  the  great  con- 
troversy in  which  he  had  become  involved.  But 
Tyndale  was  engaged  in  no  contest,  attacked  by 
no  one — a  young  man  practically  unknown,  sus- 
tained or  encouraged  by  no  one,  representing  no 
sect,  party  or  school ;  he  saw  what  he  deemed  a  great 
work  to  be  done;  he  believed  that  he  could  do  it, 
and  put  his  life  and  all  that  makes  life  dear  into 
the  vast  and  perilous  task. 

The  event  proved  that  nothing  could  have  been 
more  fortunate  than  the  concentration  of  one  great 
personality  upon  that  work,  which  thus  became  not 
a  patchwork  but  a  unity.  What  Bacon  did  for 
modern  science,  Tyndale  did  for  the  English  Scrip- 
tures. 

He  had  not  completed  the  translation  of  the  en- 
tire Bible  before  his  death,  but,  as  we  say  in  modern 
phrase,  he  had  "set  the  pace" : — he  had  created  the 
style  and  established  the  model  according  to  which 
all  the  remaining  work  must  be  made,  and  was 
made,  to  conform.    It  is  said  of  him : 


204  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

"For  felicity  of  diction  and  dignity  of  rhythm,  Tyndale 
never  has  been  and  never  can  be  surpassed.  The  concep- 
tion of  the  Bible  as  the  people's  book  came  down  to  him 
from  Wyclif,  but  his  splendid  embodiment  of  that  con- 
ception in  the  popular  English  of  his  own  day  is  the  work 
of  his  individual  genius.  His  problem  was  a  difficult 
one.  The  language  of  the  common  people  must  be  used, 
so  that,  according  to  his  own  early  ideal,  it  might  be 
read  and  understood  by  'a  boy  that  driveth  the  plow.' 
Yet  the  nobility,  dignity  and  majesty  of  his  great  originals 
must  not  be  sacrificed.  In  combining  these  important 
elements  he  succeeded  so  well  that,  far  from  lowering  his 
standard  of  language  down  to  the  popular  level,  he  lifted 
the  common  language  in  a  true  nobility  of  homeliness  up 
to  the  sublime  level  of  the  Bible." 

Regarding  Tyndale's  achievement  the  historian 
Froude  remarks : 

"Of  the  translation  itself,  though  since  that  time  it  has 
been  many  times  revised  and  altered,  we  may  say  that 
it  is  substantially  the  Bible  with  which  we  are  familiar. 
The  peculiar  genius — if  such  a  word  may  be  permitted — 
which  breathes  through  it,  the  mingled  tenderness  and 
majesty,  the  Saxon  simplicity,  the  preternatural  grandeur, 
unequaled,  unapproached,  in  the  attempted  improvements 
of  modern  scholars, — all  are  here,  and  bear  the  impress 
of  the  mind  of  one  man,  William  Tyndale." 

Jusserand  says  of  him  :* 

"Except  in  his  marginal  glosses,  often  marred  by  party 
spirit,  by  abuse  and  insults,  Tyndale  wrote  in  a  sober  and 
dignified  style,  free  from  flowers  of  speech,  conceits,  and 
pedantry;  he  set  the  example,  and  his  successors,  includ- 
ing the  authors  of  the  so-called  Authorized  Version,  fol- 
lowed it.  His  veneration  for  the  sacred  text  and  his 
trust  in  the  powers  of  his  native  tongue  upheld  him  in 

*  "A  Literary  History  of  the  English  People,"  vol.  i,  p.  205. 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  205 

his  task;  'for,'  said  he,  'the  Greke  tongue  agreeth  moare 
with  the  EngHsh  then  with  the  Latyne.  And  the  prop- 
irties  of  the  Hebrue  tonge  agreth  a  thousande  tymes 
moare  with  the  EngHsh  then  with  the  Latyne.  The  man- 
ner of  speakynge  is  both  one,  so  yt  in  a  thousande  places 
thou  neadest  not  but  to  translate  it  in  to  the  English  worde 
for  worde.' " 

Tyndale  was  the  first  to  translate  the  Scriptures 
from  the  original  Hebrew  of  the  Old  and  Greek 
of  the  New  Testament.  Wyclif  had  been  compelled 
to  make  his  translation  from  the  Latin,  the  one  text 
available  in  his  time;  but  the  Renaissance  had  put 
into  Tyndale's  hand  the  Hebrew  and  Greek  orig- 
inals. He  was  so  thorough  a  scholar  as  to  read  them 
easily,  and  conformed  to  them  with  scrupulous  care. 
Thus  he  was  original,  following  an  untrodden  path. 

Yet  his  originality  was  too  real  for  self-conceit. 
He  was  great  enough  to  see  the  nobility  and  excel- 
lence of  Wyclif's  version,  and  kept  its  substance, 
while  supplying  its  defects,  correcting  its  errors  and 
retouching  all,  so  that  the  grand  language  of  the 
earlier  time  came  forth  remolded  into  the  living 
English  of  his  own  day.  Hence  it  is,  probably,  that 
the  diction  of  Tyndale's  Bible  and  of  the  succeeding 
versions  founded  upon  it  is  so  predominantly  Anglo- 
Saxon.  Yet  Tyndale  was  scholar  enough  and  inde- 
pendent enough  to  use  freely  the  words  of  Latin 
or  Greek  derivation  which  in  his  day  had  become 
an  accepted  part  of  English  speech,  and  in  his  diction 
these  are  so  deftly  interwoven  with  the  older  lan- 
guage that  we  never  think  of  them  except  when  we 


206  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

stop  to  analyze,  while  yet  they  contribute  to  the 
beauty,  the  rhythm  and  even  to  the  simplicity  of 
the  composite  speech. 

"Tyndale  is  merely  a  full-grown  Wycliffe,  and  his  re- 
cension of  the  New  Testament  is  just  what  his  great 
predecessor  would  have  made  it,  had  he  awaked  again 
to  see  the  full  dawn  of  that  glorious  day  of  which  his 
own  life  and  labors  kindled  the  morning  twilight.  Not 
only  does  Tyndale  retain  the  general  grammatical  struc- 
ture of  the  older  version,  but  most  of  its  felicitous  verbal 
combinations ;  and,  what  is  more  remarkable,  he  preserves 
even  the  rhythmic  flow  of  its  periods,  which  is  again  re- 
peated in  the  recension  of  1611.  Wycliffe,  then,  must  be 
considered  as  having  originated  the  diction  and  phrase- 
ology which  for  five  centuries  have  constituted  the  con- 
secrated dialect  of  the  English  speech ;  and  Tyndale,  as 
having  given  to  it  that  finish  and  perfection  which  have 
so  admirably  adapted  it  to  the  expression  of  religious 
doctrine  and  sentiment,  and  to  the  narration  of  the 
remarkable  series  of  historical  facts  which  are  recorded 
in  the  Christian  Scriptures." 
— Marsh,  "Lectures  on  the  English  Language,"  ch.  28, 

P-  537- 

There  had  been  no  apparent  demand  for  an  En- 
glish Bible  except  in  the  soul  of  this  adventurous 
translator.  But,  once  the  book  was  made,  the  de- 
mand appeared  overwhelming.  English  public  senti- 
ment, half -tamed  by  persecution  and  by  the  Tudor 
despotism,  was  resting  like  the  waters  of  a  great 
reservoir,  placid  on  the  surface  but  ready,  when 
some  daring  hand  should  break  the  edge  of  the  dam, 
to  pour  over  in  resistless  flood  through  an  ever- 
widening  channel.     It  is  stated  that  not  less  than 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  207 

fifty  thousand  copies  of  Tyndale's  translation  were 
issued  from  the  press  before  his  death.  How 
greedily  they  were  received  in  England  is  shown 
by  the  strenuous  governmental  endeavors  for  their 
suppression.  Even  before  the  printing  of  the  first 
edition  was  completed,  a  hostile  prelate  of  Frank- 
fort warned  Henry  VIII  and  Wolsey  to  watch  the 
English  ports  to  exclude  its  importation,  so  that  the 
volumes  were  to  be  seized  as  contraband  at  any 
English  custom-house.  But  they  were  smuggled  in, 
hidden  in  bales  of  merchandise  and  by  other  devices, 
in  great  numbers,  as  appears  from  the  relentless 
industry  by  which  they  were  seized  and  burned 
wherever  found.  Agents  were  even  appointed  to 
buy  up  copies  on  the  Continent  and  burn  them  there, 
so  that  they  should  by  no  possibility  ever  reach 
England.  All  this  proved  the  eager  demand  for 
such  a  work. 

When,  in  1529,  the  mighty  prime  minister,  Cardinal 
Wolsey,  fell,  Thomas  Cromwell,  an  ambitious,  cold- 
blooded politician,  without  religion  or  principle,  rose 
to  power  in  his  stead.  Then,  when  in  1 531-1532, 
Henry  definitely  broke  with  the  papacy  and  pro- 
claimed himself  supreme  head  of  the  Church  of 
England,  Cromwell  reasoned  that  it  would  be  a  good 
thing  to  have  an  English  Bible  in  circulation  in 
order  to  emphasize  and  make  permanent  the  rupture 
with  the  papacy,  on  which  he  had  staked  his  whole 
political  future;  also,  that  it  would  be  a  popular 
measure  to  give  the  people  what  they  so  evidently 


208  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

wanted.  Hence  this  irreligious  politician  determined 
that  the  English  people  should  have  a  Bible  under 
the  protection  of  the  government.  Then  translation 
swiftly  followed  translation. 

Cromwell  could  not  use  Tyndale's  version  because 
Tyndale  had  overloaded  his  Bible  with  explanatory 
notes  and  argumentative  prefaces  which  were  often 
bitterly  controversial  and,  above  all,  strongly  Luth- 
eran. Henry  VIII,  who  had  issued  a  royal  tract 
against  Luther,  for  which  the  Pope  had  given  the 
monarch  the  title  of  "Defender  of  the  Faith" — a 
title  which  the  sovereigns  of  England  still  proudly 
bear — still  retained,  after  his  break  with  the  Pope, 
his  hatred  of  Lutheranism,  and  therefore  fiercely 
detested  Tyndale's  Bible.  To  meet  this  difficulty, 
a  good,  faithful,  industrious  man  was  found,  who 
made  in  Antwerp  what  appeared  to  be  a  new  trans- 
lation. Coverdale  used  Tyndale's  version,  so  far  as 
that  was  completed,  as  the  basis  of  his  own  work. 
For  the  unfinished  portions  he  could  not,  like  Tyn- 
dale, translate  direct  from  the  Hebrew  and  the 
Greek,  but  used  the  best  Latin  and  German  transla- 
tions he  could  procure.  He  did  not  work  under 
poverty  and  persecution,  but  with  the  approval  of 
the  English  government  and  supplied  with  sufficient 
means.  So,  in  comparative  ease  and  comfort,  he 
finished  the  first  complete  English  translation  of 
the  Scriptures  of  that  day. 

Coverdale  was  a  master  of  felicitous  English. 
It  is  said  of  him  that  he  "was  of  a  delicate  and 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  209 

susceptible  temperament,  endowed  in  an  exceptional 
degree  with  the  feeling  for  rhythm,  and  with  an 
instinct  for  whatever  is  beautiful  and  tender  in 
language."  Through  his  own  translation  and  others 
which  he  assisted  in  editing,  he  has  had  a  great 
influence  upon  the  style  of  our  authorized  version. 
His  version  of  the  Psalms  is  that  used  in  the  Book 
of  Common  Prayer,  which  was  compiled  under  the 
reign  of  Edward  VI  (1549-1552).  Coverdale's 
Bible,  which  was  in  black  letter,  and  of  small  folio 
size,  and  bearing  a  dedication  to  the  king,  reached 
England  in  1535  and  began  to  be  circulated  with 
the  royal  approval  while  Tyndale  was  a  prisoner, 
about  a  year  before  his  death.  Coverdale  omitted 
many  of  Tyndale's  prefaces  and  notes.  Thus  his 
translation,  while,  on  the  whole,  inferior  to  Tyn- 
dale's, could  be  freely  circulated,  while  Tyndale's 
could  not. 

Soon  appeared  yet  another  version,  known  as 
Matthew's  Bible.  This  was  really  the  work  of 
John  Rogers,  an  eminent  clergyman  and  scholar, 
who  won  melancholy  fame  as  the  first  martyr  to 
perish  at  the  stake  under  the  persecution  of  Queen 
Mary  Tudor,  a  few  years  later.  Rogers  had  been 
the  disciple  and  friend  of  Tyndale,  who  had  ap- 
pointed him  his  literary  executor.  As  it  was  not 
safe  to  publish  the  book  in  his  own  name,  it  was 
issued  in  the  name  of  Thomas  Matthew,  and  is 
known  as  Matthew's  Bible,  though  at  several  points 
the  initials  J.  R.  appear. 


210  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

This  book  reached  England  in  1537,  was  approved 
by  Archbishop  Cranmer,  and  licensed  by  the  king, 
who  at  the  same  time  gave  his  formal  approval  to 
Coverdale's  translation,  which  had  already  been  for 
two  years  in  unhindered  circulation.  Matthew's 
Bible  was  in  fact  Tyndale's  Bible,  with  part  of  the 
notes  omitted,  and  the  lacking  portions  of  the  text 
supplied  from  Coverdale's  version.  Thus  within 
two  years  of  Tyndale's  death,  two  Bibles,  virtually 
reproducing  his  own,  were  circulating  in  England 
under  the  authority  of  the  king.  Matthew's  Bible 
speedily  superseded  Coverdale's  because  it  had  more 
of  the  vigor  and  spiritual  earnestness  of  Tyndale's 
devout  heart  and  masterful  mind.  It  is  remarked 
by  scholars  that  "the  chief  interest  of  the  Matthew's 
Bible  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  forms  the  real  basis  of 
all  later  revisions,"  thus  justifying  the  claim  already 
stated  that  Tyndale's  version  is  substantially  the 
foundation  of  the  English  Bible  which  we  have 
to-day. 

Still  a  new  version,  however,  was  now  at  hand. 
Cromwell,  the  resourceful  prime  minister,  was  aware 
of  a  hidden  danger.  Matthew's  Bible,  while  it  had 
eliminated  much,  had  yet  retained  a  portion  of  the 
controversial  matter  of  Tyndale's  own  translation. 
The  Protestant  scholars  of  that  day  unconsciously 
retained  a  leaven  of  the  idea  that  the  common 
people  could  not  be  trusted  to  read  the  Scriptures 
without  note  or  comment.  So  they  sought,  by  notes 
and  explanations,  to  keep  them  from  straying  away 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  211 

from  the  truth.  What  if  some  zealous  ecclesiastic 
should  call  the  king's  attention  to  these  notes  and 
prefaces  full  of  "Lutheranism,"  which  Henry  so 
detested?  What  if  the  prime  minister  should  sud- 
denly be  called  to  account  by  his  zealous  and  hot- 
tempered  sovereign  for  the  circulation  of  such 
doctrines  within  his  realm? 

To  guard  against  this  danger,  the  wily  politician 
devised  a  magnificent  scheme  that  would  appeal  to 
that  love  of  pomp  and  splendor  which  had  led  King 
Llenry  to  parade  himself  and  his  knights  in  France 
on  the  famous  Field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold.  He 
would  issue  a  new  Bible  on  a  splendid  scale,  sure 
to  command  the  royal  favor.  He  would  take  charge 
of  the  publication  himself,  and  take  care  that  the 
most  zealous  theologian  should  not  incorporate  in 
it  one  objectionable  note.  Such  was  the  origin  of 
the  "Great  Bible,"  a  truly  magnificent  work.  As 
England  had  no  presses  or  workmen  equal  to  so 
grand  an  undertaking,  Coverdale  was  sent  to  Paris, 
amply  supplied  with  authority  and  funds  for  all  the 
expenditure  needed,  and  sustained  by  the  royal 
license  of  the  French  monarch,  Francis  I.  One  diffi- 
culty, however,  even  the  Prime  Minister  of  England 
could  not  guard  against.  The  dreaded  Inquisition 
was  then  supreme  in  Paris.  The  editors  and  trans- 
lators worked  in  daily  dread  of  that  formidable  and 
pitiless  tribunal.  Once  again  devout  men  had  to 
print  the  Scriptures  as  if  they  were  committing  a 
crime.     When  the  work  was  far  advanced,  Cover- 


212  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

dale,  as  if  some  premonition  had  come  to  him,  toolc 
advantage  of  the  British  ambassador  to  England, 
and  of  the  vital  fact  that  an  ambassador's  baggage 
could  not  be  searched  at  the  frontier,  and  sent  the 
sheets  already  completed  safely  packed  in  the  travel- 
ing cases  of  the  minister  plenipotentiary.  Scarcely 
had  he  done  so  when  the  officers  of  the  Inquisition 
descended  upon  the  printing  office.  They  seized  a 
quantity  of  sheets  yet  remaining,  but  the  cupidity 
of  one  official  led  him  to  sell  these  by  the  pound 
for  w^aste  paper,  "four  great  dry-vats  full,"  and  the 
watchful  Coverdale  bought  up  the  mass  and  con- 
trived to  ship  these  also  to  England.  Then  Crom- 
well, with  the  royal  treasury  under  his  hand,  sent 
over  to  Paris  and  bought  the  entire  printing  outfit, 
type  and  presses  bodily,  and  transported  them  to 
England,  and  easily  hired  some  of  the  best  of  the 
French  printers  to  cross  to  London  and  complete 
the  work. 

The  splendid  volume  was  issued  in  1539,  with  a 
full  page  frontispiece  by  the  world-famous  artist, 
Hans  Holbein,  representing  King  Henry  VIII  on 
his  throne  in  robes  of  state,  the  Lord  and  his  angels 
bending  over  him  from  above,  church  dignitaries 
kneeling  around  him,  as  he  presented  the  sacred 
volume,  while  the  common  people  thronged  around, 
with  scrolls  issuing  from  their  mouths,  some  in- 
scribed "Vivat  Rex!"  and  others,  in  plain  English, 
"God  save  the  King!"  Of  the  orthodoxy  of  such 
a  book  the  king  could  not  have  a  moment's  doubt. 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  213 

Just  in  advance  of  its  publication  Cromwell  had 
artfully  procured  an  innocent-appearing  royal  order 
requiring  all  clerg}'men  to  provide,  before  a  specified 
day,  "one  boke  of  the  whole  Bible  in  the  largest 
volume,  set  up  in  some  convenient  place  within  the 
church,  whereat  their  parishioners  may  most  con- 
veniently resort  to  and  read  the  same."  It  was  at 
once  evident  that  this  could  be  none  other  than  the 
"Great  Bible,"  often  called  "Cranmer's  Bible,"  be- 
cause of  Cranmer's  preface.  This  privilege  was  in- 
stantly and  highly  appreciated  by  the  people,  some 
churches  being  obliged  to  provide  several  copies — 
one  church,  at  least,  supplying  six — to  meet  the 
demand.  Careful  rules  had  to  be  adopted  for  order 
and  mutual  consideration  in  consulting  the  sacred 
volume. 

"But  that  which  penetrated  the  imagination  and  lan- 
guage of  England  more  than  any  word,  lay  or  ecclesias- 
tical, was  the  Bible  itself,  wherein  the  simple  folk, 
without  other  books,  and  open  to  new  emotions,  pricked 
by  the  reproaches  of  conscience  and  the  presentiment  of 
the  dark  future,  suddenly  looked  with  awe  and  trembling 
upon  the  face  of  the  eternal  King,  heard  or  read  the 
tables  of  his  law,  the  archives  of  his  vengeance,  and  with 
the  whole  attention  of  eyes  and  heart  filled  themselves 

with  his  promises  and  threats It  was  not  only  a 

discovery  of  salvation  to  the  troubled  conscience  but  the 
revelation  of  a  new  literature — the  only  literature  prac- 
tically accessible  to  all,  and  comprising  at  once  legends 
and  annals,  war-song  and  psalm,  philosophy  and  vision. 
Imagine  the  effect  upon  minds  essentially  unoccupied  by 
any  history,  romance  or  poetry,  and  anxiously  alive  to  the 
grandeurs  and  terrers  which  pa'ss  before  their  eyes  as 


214  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

they  gather  in  crowds  Sunday  after  Sunday,  day  after 
day,  to  hear  its  marvelous  accent. 

"Many  well-disposed  people  used  much  to  resort  to  the 
hearing  thereof,  especially  when  they  could  get  anybody 

that  had  an  audible  voice  to  read  to  them One 

John  Porter  used  sometimes  to  be  occupied  in  that  goodly 
exercise,  to  the  edifying  of  himself  as  well  as  others. 
This  Porter  was  a  fresh  young  man  and  of  a  big  stature ; 
and  great  multitudes  would  resort  thither  to  hear  him, 
because  he  could  read  well  and  had  an  audible  voice." 
— Welsh,  "Development  of  English  Literature  and  Lan- 
guage," ch.  6,  p.  326. 

Thus  within  four  years  after  the  death  of  Tyn- 
dale,  the  Great  Bible,  containing  virtually  all  his 
work,  was  set  up  for  public  reading  in  all  the 
churches  of  England  under  the  authority  of  the 
king. 

One  disappointment  came  to  the  careful  and 
studious  Coverdale  in  the  matter.  He  had  prepared 
a  store  of  explanatory  notes,  and  had  devised  an 
elaborate  apparatus  of  pointing  hands  to  guide  the 
reader  safely  to  the  explanations.  These  pointing 
hands  still  appear  in  all  the  early  editions,  but  they 
point  to  nothing;  for  the  shrewd  Cromwell  relent- 
lessly threw  out  all  the  notes,  that  not  one  theological 
explanation  should  appear  to  get  him  into  trouble. 
Thus  the  Great  Bible  was  the  first  emancipated  Bible 
in  the  modern  English  tongue,  trusting  the  people 
to  find  out  for  themselves  the  true  meaning  from 
the  sacred  page. 

But  changes  now  came  swiftly.  Henry  VIII  died 
in  1547,  and  his  son,  Edward  VI,  after  a  short  and 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  215 

feeble  reign  of  six  years,  also  passed  away.  Those 
who  are  sometimes  impatient  over  the  slowness  of 
congresses  and  other  deliberative  assemblies,  and 
long  for  a  strong  executive  to  give  them  in  an  in- 
stant what  they  happen  to  want,  should  hark  back 
to  the  days  of  masterful  power  when  freedom  of 
religious  worship  was  unknown  and  the  death  of  a 
sovereign  could  change  the  religion  of  a  people. 
Henry's  daughter,  Llary  Tudor,  a  rigorous  Cathol'ic 
and  merciless  persecutor,  came  to  the  throae. 
Among  many  victims,  John  Rogers  and  Archbishop 
Cranmer  were  burnt  at  the  stake.  All  Protestants 
who  could  escape  fled  from  the  deadly  island.  Num- 
bers of  them  took  refuge  in  the  hospitable  Protestant 
city  of  Geneva  in  Switzerland.  Are  we  to  suppose 
that  those  men  sat  down  in  sackcloth  and  ashes  to 
bewail  the  desolation  of  Zion  and  their  own  hard 
fate?  By  no  means.  They  were  men  of  a  different 
temper.  They  added  to  their  devotion  and  faith 
something  of  the  unbeatable,  insubmissible  English 
resilience.  They  said,  "If  we  can  not  preach  in 
England,  we  will  send  the  Bible  to  England."  The 
"Great  Bible,"  which  required  to  be  placed  on  a 
shelf  in  the  church,  was  no  longer  of  use  under  a 
Roman  Catholic  sovereign.  They  would  provide  a 
Bible  for  the  people,  small  and  cheap,  easily  trans- 
ported, and  within  the  reach  of  all.  Such  was  the 
Geneva  Bible,  which  was  issued  in  1560.  It  was 
not  only  a  small  volume  but  it  was  printed,  not  in 
the  old  black  letter,  but  in  our  modern  Roman  type. 


216  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

Our  familiar  division  of  verses  also  appears  for  the 
first  time  in  English  in  the  Geneva  Bible.* 

The  publication  of  the  Geneva  Bible  proved  sin- 
gularly opportune.  Queen  Elizabeth  had  come  to 
the  throne  in  1558.  The  period  of  Protestant  elation 
was  in  full  tide.  The  Bible  was  once  more  free  in 
England.  There  was  yet  very  little  English  litera- 
ture. Shakespeare  was  not  yet  born.  Bacon  was  in 
his  cradle.  The  people  had  been  trained  by  the 
Great  Bible  into  the  habit  of  Bible-reading.  All 
that  they  held  most  dear  was  connected  with  this 
book,  and  they  hailed  with  joy  the  cheap,  popular 
Geneva  translation,  which  reached  the  prodigious 
number  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  editions. 

This  popular  Bible,  however,  was  liberally  pro- 
vided with  notes,  giving  the  views  of  Calvin  and 
Luther.  Hence  the  church  authorities  determined 
to  provide  a  safe  translation  under  their  own  super- 
vision. They  issued,  in  1568,  the  Bishops'  Bible, 
which  was  highly  ecclesiastical  and  fortified  with 
great  names,  but  costly  and  cumbersome,  feeble  in 
its  attempt  to  avoid  controversy,  and,  withal,  not 
scholarly.  Hence  it  was  unable  to  hold  its  own 
against  the  Geneva  Bible,  which  became  the  especial 
favorite  of  the  English  Puritans  and  the  Scotch 
Presbyterians. 

During  the  years  from  1582  to  16 10  there  was 

*  This  division  had  been  first  made  in  the  Greek  Testament  by 
Robert  Stephens  during  a  ride  between  Paris  and  Lyons.  The  system 
of  division  was  afterwards  extended  to  the  Old  Testament,  but  now  for 
the  first  time  introduced  into  an  English  Bible. 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  217 

prepared  the  Roman  Catholic  translation  of  the 
Bible  into  English,  commonly  known  as  the  "Douai 
Bible."  Of  this  version  the  New  International 
Encyclopedia  says : 

"The  strength  of  the  Reformation  movement  in  England 
drove  many  English  Catholics  to  France.  At  Reims  and 
Douai  English  colleges  were  established  by  these  refugees 
for  the  purpose  of  educating  young  men  for  the  priest- 
hood. In  1582  an  English  New  Testament,  with  annota- 
tions, was  published  at  Reims  by  John  Fogny.  The  work 
was  completed  by  the  publication  of  the  Old  Testament  in 
1609  at  Douai.  The  English  Bible  used  by  Roman  Cath- 
olics is  thus  known  as  the  Douai  Bible.  It  is  characteristic 
of  this  translation  that  it  was  made  from  the  Vulgate  and 
not  from  the  Greek  and  Hebrew  originals.  This  was  be- 
cause of  the  decree  of  the  Council  of  Trent  making  the 
Vulgate  the  standard  Bible  of  the  Roman  church.  The 
Remish  Testament  of  1582  contains  an  elaborate  preface 
setting  forth  the  value  and  proper  use  of  a  popular  version 
and  defending  the  accuracy  of  the  following  translation. 
It  was  a  serious,  conscientious  attempt,  hampered,  indeed, 
by  a  compulsory  dependence  on  the  Vulgate,  but  not  alto- 
gether blind  to  the  necessity,  at  times,  of  falling  back  on 
the  Greek.  Its  English  is  not  so  idiomatic  as  that  of 
Tyndale's  version.  Subsequent  editions,  such  as  those  of 
Dr.  Challoner  (London,  1752),  and  Dr.  MacMahon 
(Dublin,  1791),  and  more  modern  editions  of  the  Douai 
Bible,  show  marked  improvement  over  those  of  1582  and 
1609." 

Elizabeth's  great  reign  ended,  and  James  I  became 
king,  in  1603.  In  the  midst  of  a  theological  con- 
ference, it  occurred  to  him  that  it  would  be  a  grand 
achievement  and  signalize  his  reign  to  make  a  wholly 
new  translation  of  the  Bible.    Fifty-four  translators 


218  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

were  summoned — all  eminent  scholars — but  only 
forty-seven  are  known  to  have  undertaken  the  work. 
They  were  divided  into  six  companies,  two  of  which 
met  at  Cambridge,  two  at  Oxford,  and  two  at  West- 
minster. When  a  portion  was  finished  by  one  of  the 
companies  it  was  sent  to  the  others  for  their  exami- 
nation and  criticism,  any  differences  of  opinion 
being  referred  to  a  committee.  Finally  the  whole 
work  was  revised  in  London  by  a  special  committee 
consisting  of  two  delegates  from  each  of  the  six 
companies. 

The  first  article  of  the  royal  instructions  required : 
*'The  ordinary  Bible  read  in  the  Church,  commonly 
called  the  Bishops'  Bible,  to  be  followed,  and  as 
little  altered  as  the  truth  of  the  original  will  admit." 

From  this  some  have  hastily  inferred  that  the 
King  James  Bible  was  nothing  but  a  revision  of  the 
Bishops'  Bible.  But  it  will  be  seen  that  the  final 
clause  of  the  instruction  gives  a  wide  latitude :  "as 
little  altered  as  the  truth  of  the  original  will  admit." 
Who  should  say  what  "the  truth  of  the  original" 
would  admit?  Evidently  no  one  but  the  revisers. 
They  produced  a  work  very  different  from  the 
Bishops'  Bible.  Their  aim  was,  as  they  themselves 
expressed  it,  "to  make  a  good  one  better,  or  out  of 
many  good  ones  one  principal  good  one."  If  ever 
an  ideal  was  attained,  it  was  this.  The  King  James 
Version  is  rich  with  all  the  best  treasures  of  the 
previous  versions  and  revisions.  It  agrees  remark- 
ably in  general  style  with  the  immortal  work  of 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  219 

Tyndale,  while  enriched  by  the  adoption  of  the  most 
feHcitous  words  and  phrases  that  had  been  intro- 
duced since  his  day  in  the  various  revisions.  But 
the  ultimate  basis  of  the  work  was  the  text  of  the 
Hebrew  and  Greek  originals.  Thus  they  state  it  on 
their  title-page,  as  will  be  seen  in  any  copy  of  the 
so-called  "Authorized  Version," — "Translated  out 
of  the  original  tongues,  and  with  the  former  transla- 
tions diligently  compared  and  revised."  They  were 
competent  to  do  this,  for  we  are  told  that  "they 
were  the  picked  scholars  and  linguists  of  their  day. 
They  were  also  men  of  profound  and  unaffected 
piety." 

Some  will  be  ready  to  inquire  how  the  personality 
of  the  translator  can  make  any  difference.  If  the 
words  of  the  original  are  faithfully  rendered  into 
English,  must  not  all  translations  be  alike?  The 
possible  difference  may  be  illustrated  from  the  effect 
of  music.  Here  is  a  musical  composition  all  written 
out.  Two  musicians  play  that  piece  of  music  upon 
the  same  piano.  Both  play  correctly,  striking  every 
note  in  its  proper  order  and  time,  yet  the  rendering 
of  one  is  incomparably  finer  and  nobler  than  that  of 
the  other.  There  is  an  indescribable  something 
which  we  call  the  "touch"  of  the  player,  by  which  his 
mind  and  soul  are  expressed  through  the  notes. 
Something  like  this  is  in  the  use  of  language.  There 
are  certain  personal  qualities  that  would  make  one 
man's  rendering  indescribably  better  than  any  other 
version  of  the  same  text.    A  person  of  narrow  mind 


220  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

and  commonplace  activities  naturally  uses  a  small 
range  of  commonplace  words  and  ready-made  com- 
binations of  words.  They  fit  well  enough  such 
thought  as  he  has.  He  does  not  rise  above  himself 
in  translating.  If  he  attempts  to  use  rich,  grand 
and  noble  words,  he  has  no  conception  of  their  real 
power  or  fitting  connection,  and  becomes  like  a 
tramp  in  a  stolen  dress-suit;  in  the  attempt  to  be 
splendid  he  has  made  himself  ridiculous.  All  the 
grammars  and  dictionaries  you  can  accumulate 
around  such  a  man  will  not  carry  him  beyond  the 
range  of  his  own  mind,  nor  lift  him  above  his 
habitual  plane  of  thought.  Personality  is  as  impor- 
tant in  translation  as  in  original  composition. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  a  translator  must  know 
the  language  of  the  original,  but  it  may  also  fittingly 
be  said  that  he  must  know  it  well  enough  to  think 
in  it.  He  must  be  able  to  take  its  idioms  whole,  and 
not  word  by  word, — to  reach  on  through  great 
stretches  of  thought,  and  coordinate  beginning, 
middle,  and  end.  This,  also,  was  these  miCn's  ideal. 
Thus  Purvey,  in  the  prolog  to  his  revision  of 
Wyclif's  translation  (1388),  writes: 

"First  it  is  to  knowe  (to  be  known)  that  the  best 
translating  is  out  of  Latyn  into  English,  to  translate  aftir 
the  sentence  (i.  c,  the  sensed,  and  not  oneli  aftir  the 
wordis,  so  that  the  sentence  be  as  opin,  either  openere, 
in  English  as  in  Latyn,  and  not  go  fer  fro  the  lettre." 

That  is  to  say,  the  translator  must  make  not 
merely  the  words  but  the  thought  of  the  foreign 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  221 

author  so  thoroughly  his  own  that  he  can  think  it 
out  into  words  in  his  own  language,  just  as  if  it 
had  originated  in  his  own  mind. 

One  who  will  read  their  own  account  of  the  work 
these  early  translators  did  soon  comes  to  feel  that 
their  scholarship  was  as  intense  as  their  devotion. 
They  were  not  merely  good  men  but  scholars  who 
were  easily  masters  of  the  languages  from  which 
they  translated, — the  Latin  of  Wyclif's  day,  and  the 
Hebrew  and  Greek  of  Tyndale's.  The  translator 
from  a  foreign  language  into  his  native  tongue  must 
know  his  own.  From  time  to  time  some  expert  in 
French,  German  or  Italian  translates  a  foreign 
masterpiece  into  such  execrable  English  that  we  won- 
der how  the  original  ever  came  to  be  admired. 
Slavery  to  the  foreign  idiom  has  destroyed  the 
translator's  mastery  of  his  own.  Many  Latinisms 
were  thus  carried  over  in  the  early  Wyclif  Version, 
but  these  were  largely  corrected  in  their  revision. 
Tyndale's  style  is  almost  wholly  free  from  them 
because  of  his  rare  mastery  of  felicitous  English. 
Coverdale,  with  less  skill  in  foreign  languages, 
largely  shared  Tyndale's  mastery  of  his  own. 

This  gift  of  expression,  often  called  the  sense 
of  language,  is  like  quick  perception  of  color  or 
form,  largely  a  native  endowment.  Among  the 
many  synonyms  of  speech,  one  person  infallibly 
selects,  for  reasons  that  it  might  puzzle  him  at  the 
moment  to  explain,  the  very  word  fullest  of  deep  or 
hidden  meaning,  richest  in  association  of  lofty  or 


222  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

tender  feeling,  fittest  in  significance,  tone,  or 
rhythm  for  the  thought  then  and  there  to  be  ex- 
pressed. Such  was  the  gift  of  the  self-educated 
statesman,  Abraham  Lincoln.  It  has  been  remarked 
that  wherever  he  interlined  corrections  in  the  state 
papers  of  the  cultured  Seward,  the  change  is  in 
every  case  an  improvement.  But  this  native  power 
can  be  indefinitely  increased  by  culture  and  training. 
Such  a  mind,  when  thoroughly  trained,  comes  to 
have  a  vast  assemblage  of  v>^ords  from  every  de- 
partment of  human  thought,  and  among  these  it 
pounces  by  instinct  upon  the  one  that  the  occasion 
demands.      This  is  to   know  one's  native   tongue. 

The  English  Bible  is  full  of  passages  where  the 
very  word  of  words  has  been  chosen,  and  no  other 
could  be  substituted  without  loss. 

Begin  with  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  *Tn  the 
beginning  God  created  the  heaven  and  the  earth." 
That  fills  the  mind  full,  and  brings  a  pause  to  grasp 
the  greatness  of  the  thought.  Then  follow  the  story 
down,  not  worrying  about  geolog}^  View  it,  if  you 
will,  as  an  impressionist  picture,  or  as  an  inspired 
vision,  without  too  minute  study  of  details,  and  it 
is  the  story  of  a  grand  march  from  chaos  to  a 
habitable  earth  and  human  dominion,  wrought  by 
the  all-powerful  word  of  God.  In  the  vastness  and 
majesty  of  the  view  small  items  are  neglected: 

"And  God  said.  Let  the  waters  under  the  heaven 
be  gathered  together  unto  one  place,  and  let  the  dry 
land  appear :  and  it  was  so." 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  223 

What  is  the  lapse  of  a  million  or  more  years  when 
Omnipotence  is  fulfilling  the  purpose  of  the  Eternal? 
The  English  words  that  tell  the  story  bring  before 
the  reader  of  the  twentieth  century  the  vision  of 
the  ancient  seer  in  all  its  majestic  simplicity,  till  the 
mind  rests  with  the  closing  utterance : 

"And  God  saw  everything  that  he  had  made,  and, 
behold,  it  was  very  good." 

For  narrative,  follow  the  life  of  Abraham,  the 
pastoral  chieftain ;  the  wooing  of  Rebecca  for  Isaac's 
bride, — a  tale  of  a  far-off  time  and  a  different 
civilization,  where  yet  the  English  adapts  itself  to 
the  eastern  customs  of  ancient  days,  so  that  the 
story  is  Oriental  still,  and  the  women  with  their 
water-pots  and  the  camels  move  naturally  across  the 
scene;  next  of  Jacob's  overreaching  of  his  reckless 
brother;  then  of  his  own  lonely  journey  to  seek  his 
fortune  afar,  and,  as  he  slept  on  a  pillow  of  stone 
in  the  wilderness,  he  saw  the  angel-thronged  ladder 
reaching  up  to  heaven;  of  his  winning  of  Rachel, 
where  his  seven  years  of  service  "seemed  unto  him 
but  a  few  days  for  the  love  he  had  to  her";  the 
immortal  story  of  Joseph,  fresh  and  winning  to  our 
children  to-day;  of  the  battles  and  hair-breadth 
escapes  of  David's  adventurous  life;  of  the  tender, 
manly,  warrior  friendship  of  David  and  Jonathan; 
of  Ruth,  at  once  so  womanly,  so  loving,  so  gentle 
and  so  strong;  of  EHjah,  appearing  suddenly,  as  if 
from  the  invisible  world,  commanding  the  people 


224  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

and  withstanding  the  king  in  Jehovah's  name,  till 
"there  appeared  a  chariot  of  fire  and  horses  of  fire, 
and  Elijah  went  up  by  a  whirlwind  into  heaven"; 
of  Nehemiah,  the  patriot  statesman,  seeking  Jeru- 
salem because  it  was  desolate,  and  building  it  up 
for  Israel's  new  home;  then  the  ever-new  stories  of 
the  Gospels;  of  the  conversion  of  the  Apostle  Paul 
in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  and  of  his  shipwreck, 
where  we  seem  to  look  into  the  faces  of  the  terror- 
stricken  company  and  to  hear  the  roar  of  the  stormy 
sea,  then  to  behold  the  Christian  leader  standing 
forth  with  his  message  of  hope, 

"For  there  stood  by  me  this  night  the  angel  of 
God,  whose  I  am,  and  whom  I  serve." — Acts  xxvii, 
23- 

The  flexible,  abundant  English  proves  itself  at 
home  in  every  scene.  For  exultant  joy  and  trust, 
read  Israel's  song  of  triumph  on  the  Red  Sea's 
farther  shore: 

"Sing  unto  the  Lord,  for  he  hath  triumphed  gloriously: 
the  horse  and  his  rider  hath  he  thrown  into  the  sea. 

The  Lord  is  my  strength  and  my  song,  and  he  is  become 
my  salvation;  he  is  my  God,  and  I  will  prepare  him  an 
habitation;  my  fathers'  God,  and  I  will  exalt  him 

Thou  in  thy  mercy  hast  led  forth  the  people  which  thou 
hast  redeemed :  thou  hast  guided  them  in  thy  strength  unto 
thy  holy  habitation." — Exodus  vx,   1-2,   13. 

Or  David's  joyous  utterance  in  the  eighteenth 
Psalm : 

"I  will  love  thee,  O  Lord,  my  strength. 

The  Lord  is  my  rock,  and  my  fortress,  and  my  deliverer ; 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  225 

my  God,  my  strength,  in  whom  I  will  trust;  my  buckler 
and  the  horn  of  my  salvation,  and  my  high  tower. 

I  will  call  upon  the  Lord,  who  is  worthy  to  be  praised : 
so  shall  I  be  saved  from  mine  enemies. 

He  sent  from  above,  he  took  me,  he  drew  me  out  of 
many  waters. 

As  for  God,  his  way  is  perfect:  the  word  of  the  Lord 
is  tried:  he  is  a  buckler  to  all  those  that  trust  in  him." 

For  expression  of  grief  turn  to  David's  Lament 
over  Saul  and  Jonathan: 

"The  beauty  of  Israel  is  slain  upon  thy  high  places: 
how  are  the  mighty  fallen! 

I  am  distressed  for  thee,  my  brother  Jonathan:  very 
pleasant  hast  thou  been  unto  me:  thy  love  for  me  was 
wonderful,  passing  the  love  of  women. 

How  are  the  mighty  fallen,  and  the  weapons  of  war 
perished!" — //  Samuel  i,  19,  26. 

As  an  utterance  of  sorrow  for  sin,  read  the 
Penitential  Psalm  (the  fifty-first)  : 

"Have  mercy  upon  me,  O  God,  according  to  thy  loving 
kindness:  according  unto  the  multitude  of  thy  tender 
mercies  blot  out  my  transgressions. 

For  I  acknowledge  my  transgressions:  and  my  sin  is 
ever  before  me. 

Against  thee,  thee  only,  have  I  sinned,  and  done  this 
evil  in  thy  sight: 

Restore  unto  me  the  joy  of  thy  salvation;  and  uphold 
me  with  thy  free  spirit. 

The  sacrifices  of  God  are  a  broken  spirit:  a  broken  and 
a  contrite  heart,  O  God,  thou  wilt  not  despise." 

For  the  anguish  of  national  disaster,  turn  to  the 
Lamentations  of  Jeremiah : 

"How  doth  the  city  sit  solitary,  that  was  full  of  people ! 

15 


226  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

how  is  she  become  as  a  widow !  she  that  was  great  among 
the  nations ! 

She  weepeth  sore  in  the  night,  and  her  tears  are  on  her 
cheeks:  among  all  her  lovers  she  hath  none  to  comfort 
her: 

And  from  the  daughter  of  Zion  all  her  beauty  is  de- 
parted. 

Is  it  nothing  to  you,  all  ye  that  pass  by?  behold,  and 
see  if  there  be  any  sorrow  like  unto  my  sorrow,  which  is 
done  unto  me." 

Descriptions  of  the  beauty  and  wonder  of  nature 
are  unsurpassed. 

"The  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God;  and  the  firma- 
ment sheweth  his  handiwork. 

Day  unto  day  uttereth  speech,  and  night  unto  night 
sheweth  knowledge. — Psalm  xix. 

When  I  consider  thy  heavens,  the  work  of  thy  fingers, 
the  moon  and  the  stars,  which  thou  hast  ordained: 

What  is  man  that  thou  art  mindful  of  him?  and  the 
son  of  man  that  thou  visitest  him  ?" — Psalm  viii,  3-4. 

Read  the  sixty-fifth  Psalm,  the  one  hundred  and 
third,  the  one  hundred  and  fourth,  and  that  joyous 
outburst  of  praise  from  all  nature  in  the  one  hundred 
and  forty-eighth,  all  which  we  may  not  quote.  Note 
the  scattered  images :  how  "the  floods  clap  their 
hands  and  the  hills  are  joyful  together";  how  "the 
deep  uttered  his  voice,  and  lifted  up  his  hands  on 
high";  how  "the  pastures  are  clothed  with  flocks,  the 
valleys  also  are  covered  over  with  corn ;  they  shout 
for  joy;  they  also  sing." 

For  description  of  the  divine  majesty,  read  that 
great  chapter  of  Isaiah  (the  fortieth)  that  begins. 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  227 

"Comfort  ye,   comfort   ye  my  people,   saith  your 
God" : 

"Who  hath  measured  the  waters  in  the  hollow  of  his 
hand,  and  meted  out  heaven  with  the  span,  and  compre- 
hended the  dust  of  the  earth  in  a  measure,  and  weighed 
the  mountains  in  scales  and  the  hills  in  a  balance? 

Behold,  the  nations  are  as  a  drop  of  a  bucket,  and  are 
counted  as  the  small  dust  of  the  balance :  behold,  he  taketh 
up  the  isles  as  a  very  little  thing. 

It  is  he  that  sitteth  upon  the  circle  of  the  earth,  and 
the  inhabitants  thereof  are  as  grasshoppers ;  that  stretcheth 
out  the  heavens  as  a  curtain,  and  spreadeth  them  out  as  a 
tent  to  dwell  in: 

Lift  up  your  eyes  on  High,  and  behold  who  hath  created 
these  things,  that  bringeth  out  their  host  by  number:  he 
calleth  them  all  by  names  by  the  greatness  of  his  might, 
for  that  he  is  strong  in  power." 

The  language  that  is  so  facile  in  narrative  is 
mighty,  splendid,  majestic  in  description.  Where 
can  we  parallel  its  sublimity? 

It  would  be  vain  to  attempt  to  assemble  adequate 
examples  of  beauty  and  power  in  all  departments  of 
thought  and  utterance  from  this  great  treasury  of 
English  expression.  Let  us  merely  add  a  few  de- 
tached passages,  each  of  which  will  repay  study  and 
analysis,  as  a  representation  of  noble  English  style. 

Note  the  words  which  Cromwell  recited,  as  he 
rode  slowly  to  the  attack  in  the  early  morning  of 
the  victorious  battle  of  Dunbar: 

'"Let  God  arise,  let  his  enemies  be  scattered:  let  them 
also  that  hate  him  flee  before  him. 

As  smoke  is  driven  away,  so  drive  them  away:  as  wax 


228  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

meltcth  before  the  fire,  so  let  the  wicked  perish  at  the 
presence  of  God. 

But  let  the  righteous  be  glad;  let  them  rejoice  before 
God;  yea,  let  them  exceedingly  rejoice." — Psalm  Ixviii,  1-3. 

Then,  in  the  midst  of  the  warnings  of  that  prophet 
whose  name  has  become  a  synonym  for  lament  or 
denunciation,  read  these  words  of  comfort : 

"For  I  know  the  thoughts  that  I  think  toward  you, 
saith  the  Lord,  thoughts  of  peace,  and  not  of  evil,  to  give 
you  an  expected  end. 

And  ye  shall  seek  me,  and  shall  find  me,  when  ye  shall 
search  for  me  with  all  your  heart." — Jeremiah  xxix,  11,  14. 

"Therefore  fear  thou  not,  O  my  servant  Jacob,  saith  the 
Lord;  neither  be  dismayed,  O  Israel:  for,  lo,  I  will  save 
thee  from  afar,  and  thy  seed  from  the  land  of  their  cap- 
tivity: and  Jacob  shall  return,  and  shall  be  in  rest,  and 
be  quiet,  and  none  shall  make  him  afraid." — Jeremiah  xxx, 

lO-II. 

It  is  worth  observing  in  the  two  selections  last 
given  how  simple  are  the  words.  Only  two — dis- 
mayed and  captivity — are  out  of  the  ordinary.  The 
rest  are  for  the  most  part  such  as  a  child  might  use. 
Yet  in  their  combinations  what  an  effect  is  attained 
of  mingled  power  and  beauty. 

Study  the  following  without  note  or  comment : 

"And  the  work  of  righteousness  shall  be  peace,  and  the 
effect  of  righteousness,  quietness  and  assurance  forever." 
— Isaiah  xxxii,  17. 

"But  the  wisdom  that  is  from  above  is  first  pure,  then 
peaceable,  gentle  and  easy  to  be  intreated,  full  of  mercy 
and  good  fruits,  without  partiality,  and  without  hypocrisy. 

And  the  fruit  of  righteousness  is  sown  in  peace  of  them 
that  make  peace." — James  iii,  17-18. 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  229 

"In  a  little  wrath  I  hid  my  face  from  thee  for  a 
moment;  but  with  everlasting  kindness  will  I  have  mercy 
upon  thee,  saith  the  Lord,  thy  Redeemer 

In  righteousness  shalt  thou  be  established:  thou  shalt 
be  far  from  oppression;  for  thou  shalt  not  fear:  and  from 
terror;  for  it  shall  not  come  near  thee." — Isaiah  liv,  8,  14. 

"The  wilderness  and  the  solitary  place  shall  be  glad  for 
them;  and  the  desert  shall  rejoice,  and  blossom  as  the 
rose. 

No  lion  shall  be  there,  nor  any  ravenous  beast  shall  go 
up  thereon,  it  shall  not  be  found  there ;  but  the  redeemed 
shall  walk  there : 

And  the  ransomed  of  the  Lord  shall  return,  and  come 
to  Zion  with  songs  and  everlasting  joy  upon  their  heads: 
they  shall  obtain  joy  and  gladness,  and  sorrow  and  sigh- 
ing shall  flee  away." — Isaiah  xxxv,  i,  9-10. 

For  a  service  of  consecration  read  Solomon's 
prayer  at  the  dedication  of  the  temple  (/  Kings, 
viii,  22-53). 

For  majestic  visions,  study  the  book  of  Daniel 
and  the  Apocalypse,  not  now  concerning  yourself 
with  any  theory  or  system  of  interpretation,  but 
taking  just  what  you  find  on  the  printed  page. 
Read,  for  instance,  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth 
verses  of  the  fourth  chapter  of  Daniel,  the  dream 
worthy  of  a  king, — of  the  world-overshadowing 
tree;  of  the  "watcher  and  the  holy  one"  coming 
down  from  heaven  with  the  decree : 

"Hew  down  the  tree,  and  cut  off  his  branches,  shake 
off  his  leaves,  and  scatter  his  fruit :  let  the  beasts  get  away 
from  under  it,  and  the  fowls  from  his  branches.  Never- 
theless, leave  the  stump  of  his  roots  in  the  earth,  even  with 
a  band  of  iron  and  brass,  in  the  tender  grass  of  the  field." 


230  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

Then  follow  the  interpretation  of  the  statesman- 
prophet,  and  its  fulfilment  in  the  misfortune  and 
restoration  of  the  king,  with  his  own  devout  yet 
triumphant  utterance  at  the  close  (verses  34-37), 
when  the  long-lingering  shadow  of  insanity  had 
passed : 

"At  the  end  of  the  days  I,  Nebuchadnezzar,  lifted  up 
mine  eyes  unto  heaven,  and  mine  understanding  returned 
unto  me,  and  I  blessed  the  most  High,  and  I  praised  and 
honored  him  that  liveth  for  ever,  whose  dominion  is  an 
everlasting  dominion,  and  his  kingdom  is  from  generation 
to  generation:  And  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth  are 
reputed  as  nothing:  and  he  doeth  according  to  his  will 
in  the  army  of  heaven,  and  among  the  inhabitants  of  the 
earth:  .... 

At  the  same  time  my  reason  returned  unto  me  .... 
and  my  counsellors  and  my  lords  sought  unto  me ;  and  I 
was  established  in  my  kingdom,  and  excellent  majesty  was 
added  unto  me. 

Now  I,  Nebuchadnezzar,  praise  and  extol  and  honor 
the  King  of  heaven,  all  whose  works  are  truth,  and  his 
ways  judgment:  and  those  that  walk  in  pride  he  is  able 
to  abase." 

For  the  hope  of  the  life  eternal,  how  beautiful  the 
closing  chapters  of  the  Apocalypse : 

"And  God  shall  wipe  away  all  tears  from  their  eyes; 
and  there  shall  be  no  more  death,  neither  sorrow,  nor 
crying,  neither  shall  there  be  any  more  pain:  for  the 
former  things  are  passed  away. 

And  the  city  had  no  need  of  the  sun,  neither  of  the 
moon  to  shine  in  it :  for  the  glory  of  God  did  lighten  it, 
and  the  Lamb  is  the  light  thereof. 

And  the  nations  of  them  which  are  saved  shall  walk 
in  the  light  of  it :  and  the  kings  of  the  earth  do  bring 
their  glory  and  honor  into  it. 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE  231 

And  the  gates  of  it  shall  not  be  shut  at  all  by  day :  for 
there  shall  be  no  night  there  ....  and  they  need  no 
candle,  neither  light  of  the  sun;  for  the  Lord  God  giveth 
them  light,  and  they  shall  reign  forever  and  ever." 


VIII 

ENGLISH  ETYMOLOGY  A  HELPFUL 
STUDY 


VIII 

ENGLISH  ETYMOLOGY  A  HELPFUL 
STUDY 

If  we  know  the  actual  present  meaning  of  words, 
the  question  may  be  asked,  what  do  we  want  more  ? 
The  answer  to  this  question  is  that  to  limit  ourselves 
to  the  actual  present  meaning  is  to  defraud  our- 
selves of  thousands  of  years  of  history;  to  efface 
the  great  background  against  which  the  current 
meaning  of  words  comes  out  into  fullest  relief.  We 
are  "heirs  of  all  the  ages,"  our  words  coming  to  us 
from  the  ancient  Sanskrit  and  the  Hebrew,  from 
the  classic  Greek  and  Latin,  from  the  wild  shores 
of  the  North  Sea,  the  Danish  and  Scandinavian 
peoples,  from  the  songs  of  the  troubadours  and  the 
buccaneers  of  Spain  and  the  Indians  of  our  own 
country.  A  man  is  more  to  us,  whether  he  is  a  great 
public  leader  or  an  ordinary  acquaintance,  when  we 
know  something  of  his  past  life.  The  same  is  true 
even  in  a  novel  or  a  play.  The  novelist  or  the 
playwright  takes  upon  himself  to  set  before  us  the 
past  history  of  each  prominent  actor,  so  that  we 
associate  him  with  what  he  has  been.  Our  idea  of 
words  likewise  will  become  more  vivid,  and  our 
choice  will  be  correspondingly  more  sure,  when  we 
know  what  is  behind  each  word.  Take,  for  instance, 
the   well-known   word   miser — one  who   stints   or 

235 


236  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

starves  himself  to  accumulate  money,  which  for  him 
might  just  as  well  be  piled-up  sand.  The  word 
means  more  to  us  when  we  know  that  it  is  the  Latin 
miser,  meaning  "wretched,"  the  word  from  which 
our  miserable  is  derived.  The  miser,  then,  is  one 
who,  to  accumulate  wealth,  subjects  himself  to  all 
the  misery  of  poverty  and  destitution,  making  him- 
self miserable  in  order  to  be  rich. 

Again,  we  understand  that  a  sarcasm  is  a  cutting 
or  biting  remark.  But  we  feel  its  force  more  fully 
when  we  know  that  it  is  from  the  Greek  sarkazo, 
to  bite  or  tear  the  flesh ;  from  sarx,  flesh.  Sarcasm 
is  a  flesh-tearing  utterance.  The  words  may  be 
smooth  and  fair,  often  complimentary,  yet  they  cor- 
rode and  rankle  whenever  recalled,  and  stick  to 
their  victim  like  the  shirt  of  Nessus  burning  the 
flesh  of  the  hero  Hercules  and,  whenever  any  corner 
of  the  fatal  garment  was  torn  away,  carrying  the 
flesh  with  it.  No  violent  abuse  compares  with  keen, 
well-placed  sarcasm.  Sarcastic  as  an  adjective 
carries  the  same  meaning. 

Antipodes  is  from  the  two  Greek  words,  anti, 
meaning  against  or  opposite,  and  pons,  foot;  and 
our  antipodes  are  those  whose  feet  are  exactly  op- 
posite to  ours,  altho  with  a  few  thousand  miles  of 
earth  between  them;  so  that,  if  the  earth  were  re- 
moved, the  soles  of  their  feet  would  come  flat 
against  the  soles  of  ours.  That  is  the  idea  behind 
the  word  when  we  say  that  two  things  are  the  very 
antipodes  of  each  other. 


ENGLISH  ETYMOLOGY  237 

Frank,  open,  truthful,  is  from  the  name  of  the 
Germanic  people,  the  "Franks,"  who  conquered 
France  and  founded  the  French  monarchy.  They 
were  a  great  race,  a  free  people,  strong  enough  and 
brave  enough  to  tell  the  truth,  daring  to  tell  the 
truth,  the  whole  truth  and  nothing  but  the  truth. 
To  tell  the  truth  was  to  be  frank — was  the  mark 
of  the  free  man  of  that  conquering  people.  A  great 
part  of  the  disgrace  and  insult  that  attach  to  the 
word  lie  among  the  Germanic  peoples  is  due  to  this 
idea,  that  lying  is  the  vice  of  the  coward  and  the 
slave.  This  was  true  of  slavery  in  our  own  country. 
It  led  to  cowardice  and  falsehood. 

Slaz^e  is  from  Slavonian.  The  Slavonians  were 
often  made  captives  by  the  Franks,  and  so  the 
Slavonian  came  to  be  the  word  for  the  captive  held 
in  bondage,  the  slave. 

Slander  is  from  the  French  word  esclandre,  from 
the  Greek  skandalon,  ultimately  a  stumbling-block, 
an  offense;  hence  its  meaning  is  the  uttering  of  an 
offensive  or  prejudicial  report.  Slander  is  distinct 
from  libel.  The  uttering  of  a  report  unfavorable 
to  a  person  is  slander,  or  in  another  form  it  is 
scandal;  but  the  written  or  printed  report  is  libel. 
Libel  is  from  the  Latin  libellus,  a  little  book,  denot- 
ing primarily  the  formulated  statement  of  charges 
required  in  the  ecclesiastical  courts.  The  same  idea 
may  be  found  in  the  book  of  Job,  where  he  says, 
"Oh  that  my  adversary  had  written  a  book."  There 
was  nothing  that  Job  could  definitely  reply  to.    He 


238  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

was  suffering  under  no  definite  charge.  If  he  only 
had  charges  formulated,  he  was  so  confident  of  his 
righteousness  that  he  believed  he  could  answer  them, 
and  that  is  the  idea  of  libel,  the  written  charge, 
definite,  formal,  capable  of  being  proved  or  dis- 
proved. Knowing  that  libel  is  from  libellus,  the 
little  book,  it  is  easy  to  remember  that  it  is  the 
written  or  printed  report  that  is  the  libel.  The 
spoken  report  is  slander.  Now,  how  does  gossip 
differ  from  slander  and  libel?  We  feel  that  gossip 
is  slighter.  Gossip  is  from  God  plus  sib,  sib  mean- 
ing relation  or  relative,  and  a  gossip  was  a  God- 
relative,  a  sponsor  in  baptism,  a  godfather  or 
godmother,  hence  an  intimate  companion.  A  gossip 
is  a  companion,  and  the  word,  as  used  of  speech, 
signified  the  talk  of  intimate  friends,  who  are  much 
together,  with  the  implication  that  those  who  talk 
much  with  each  other  will  say  a  great  deal  to  the 
prejudice  of  other  people;  but  it  is  a  much  slighter 
word  than  either  slander  or  libel.  Gossip  may  be 
harmless — it  is  apt  to  be  mischievous. 

We  speak  of  the  aggregate  as  the  full  total. 
Aggregate  is  from  the  Latin  ad,  to,  plus  grex,  flock, 
signifying  a  flock  gathered  together,  and  hence  com- 
plete, exactly  according  with  our  western  ranch 
phrase,  the  "round-up."  We  speak  of  the  "round- 
up" of  cattle  when  the  whole  herd  is  gotten  to- 
gether; that  idea  applied  to  a  flock  of  sheep  is  the 
aggregate  in  Latin.  Opposed  to  that  we  have  segre- 
gate, from  se,  aside,  and  grex,  flock,  to  put  into  a 


ENGLISH  ETYMOLOGY  239 

separate  class  or  group  or  form,  to  isolate :  that  is, 
to  segregate  is  to  separate  from  the  mass  or  the 
class.  Now,  how  does  the  word  isolate  get  its  mean- 
ing of  separateness  ?  It  is  from  the  Italian  isola, 
from  the  Latin  insula,  an  island,  a  separate  land, 
land  shut  off  by  water  all  around  it.  Thus  we 
speak  of  the  Englishman's  insularity,  as  he  lives  on 
the  "tight  little  island."  That  which  is  isolated  is 
shut  off,  as  if  on  an  island.  So  we  "isolate"  a  case 
of  disease. 

There  is  the  word  enormoiis,  used  to  denote  some- 
thing very  great.  Are  there  any  limits  to  its  use? 
If  we  have  followed  its  derivation,  we  find  it  to 
come  from  the  Latin  e,  out,  plus  norma,  rule.  It 
means  "out  of  rule,"  unprecedented,  unusual;  hence, 
enormous  has  always  an  unfavorable  shade.  It  is 
not  to  be  indiscriminately  used  of  whatever  is  great. 
The  words  vast  or  immense  are  often  greatly  pref- 
erable. We  speak  of  an  enormous  price,  meaning 
unusual  and  probably  excessive;  but  we  should  not 
say  enormous  value,  for  value  is  supposed  to  be  real. 
We  may  say  immense  value.  We  may  say  enormous 
valuation,  for  valuation  is  someone's  estimate  of 
value,  which  may  be  excessive.  We  do  not  say  that 
the  height  of  the  Washington  Monument  is  enor- 
mous. We  can  not  apply  that  word  to  that  beautiful 
shaft.  The  dome  of  the  National  Capitol  is  much 
better  described  as  vast  than  as  enormous.  We  may 
characterize  a  man  as  one  of  enormous  pretensions, 
as  compared  with  his  performance;  but  we  do  not 


240  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

speak  of  a  man  of  enormous  integrity,  of  enormous 
veracity,  though  we  might  say  enormous  voracity. 
We  should  say  vast  learning,  vast  erudition.  Iin- 
mense  (primarily  unmeasured)  power  is  better  than 
enormous  power,  unless  we  mean  to  imply  that  the 
power  is  excessive  or  undesirable,  as  perhaps  when 
referring  to  "trusts." 

Traveling  under  modern  appliances  has  become 
comparatively  easy.  We  have  substituted  danger 
for  labor,  but  the  word  travel  originally  meant 
"labor,  work,"  from  the  French  travail,  and  tells 
of  the  old  time  of  the  foot  journey  and  the  post- 
chaise.  The  idea  is  still  present  in  the  plantation 
melody,  "Jordan's  a  hard  road  to  travel." 

Accumulate  and  accumulation  have  become 
favorite  words;  but  how  much  more  they  mean 
when  we  know  that  accumulate  is  derived  from  the 
Latin  cumulus,  a  heap,  and  means  to  pile  up.  An 
accumulation  is  a  heap.  As  we  say  in  common 
speech  of  a  rich  man,  "He  has  made  his  pile,"  that 
is,  his  accumulation. 

Assets  are  always  very  satisfactory,  if  there  are 
only  enough  of  them.  It  is  interesting  to  know  that 
asset  is  exactly  from  the  French  asses,  enough, 
from  the  Latin  ad,  to,  plus  satis,  enough;  that  is, 
originally,  the  assets  were  enough  to  meet  all  de- 
mands. Now  when  a  concern  fails,  with  liabilities 
of  ten  millions  and  assets  of  ten  cents,  we  use  the 
word  assets  in  a  derived  sense,  meaning  not  enough 
but  all  that  the  creditors  will  get.     It  is  interesting 


ENGLISH  ETYMOLOGY  241 

to  know  that  averse  is  from  the  Latin  a  or  ah,  from, 
and  verto,  turn,  denoting  the  head  instinctively 
turned  away  from  the  thing  one  does  not  like,  or 
would  not  do;  so  we  have  the  word  avert,  turn 
away,  as  estranged  friends  pass  with  averted  face. 

When  we  praise  one's  dexterity  we  acknowledge 
the  right-handedness  of  the  human  race,  for  dex- 
terity or  dextrous  is  from  the  Latin  dexter,  the  right 
hand,  what  is  done  with  the  right  hand  being  for 
the  vast  majority  of  people  most  neatly  and  most 
skilfully  done.  On  the  other  hand,  when  we  speak 
of  a  sinister  appearance,  a  sinister  aspect,  we  are 
referring  unconsciously  to  an  old  Roman  supersti- 
tion. Sinister,  in  Latin,  denotes  the  left  hand,  and 
all  omens,  as  the  flight  of  birds,  if  on  the  left  of 
the  observer,  were  unfavorable.  Hence  the  un- 
favorable is  the  sinister.  The  same  superstition 
survives  as  to  our  new  moon,  and,  though  we  laugh 
at  ourselves,  probably  most  of  us  feel  a  little  more 
comfortable  if  we  see  the  new  moon  over  the  right 
shoulder.  The  superstition  is  very  old,  and  the 
sinister  aspect,  the  sinister  appearance,  refers  to  that 
unfavorable  idea  that  the  Roman  attached  to  what- 
ever appeared  or  passed  on  the  left. 

What  is  the  distinction  between  awkward  and 
clumsy?  The  two  words  are  nearly  alike,  many 
times  interchangeable.  Awkward  is  from  awk,  kin- 
dred with  ojf,  from  a  Norwegian  word,  and 
awkward  is  "offward,"  turned  the  wrong  way.  It 
was  anciently  used  of  a  backhanded  blow  in  battle, 

16 


242  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

which  was  ordinarily  less  effective.  So  it  was  used 
of  squinting  eyes;  to  be  cross-eyed  was,  and  per- 
haps still  is,  to  be  awkward.  Clumsy,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  from  the  Norwegian  cliimse,  stiff  with  cold, 
as  when  we  say,  on  a  bitter  cold  morning,  "my 
fingers  are  all  thumbs."  One  can  not  work,  because 
the  muscles  are  stiff  with  cold.  Hence  clumsy  refers 
to  condition,  while  awkzvard  refers  to  action.  A 
man  clumsy  in  build  is  likely,  altho  not  certain,  to 
be  awkward  in  action.  He  may  overcome  it  by 
training.  The  finest  untrained  colt  is  azvkward  in 
harness.  If  the  animal  is  of  the  right  stuff  he  can 
be  trained  out  of  awkwardness;  but  the  clumsy  plow- 
horse  can  never  be  trained  out  of  awkwardness, 
because  the  clumsy  build  produces  for  him  the 
awkward  action;  so  we  speak  of  an  awkward  pre- 
dicament, an  awkward  excuse,  always  with  these 
meanings. 

Attempt  is  from  the  Latin  ad,  to,  and  tento,  try. 
I  will  attempt  means,  I  will  try;  and  often  attempt 
is  a  trial  which  fails.  Hence  attempt  is  always  less 
than  endeavor.  Endeavor  is  continuous,  hopes  for 
success,  and  tries  until  it  attains.  So  we  do  not  have 
the  "Society  of  Christian  Attempt,"  but  the  "Society 
of  Christian  Endeavor,"  from  the  French  en,  in  or 
to,  plus  devoir,  duty,  which  means  far  more. 

But  contempt  is  not  parallel  with  attempt.  Con- 
tempt, though  the  last  part  is  similar  in  form,  is  of 
different  derivation. '  It  is  from  the  Latin  con,  with, 
and  temno,  despise,  and  contempt  is  a  despising. 


ENGLISH  ETYMOLOGY  243 

Take  the  two  words  you  find  frequently  in  Scrip- 
ture, the  apostle  and  the  disciple.  Jesus  called  his 
disciples,  and  out  of  their  number  chose  twelve 
apostles.  Now  what  is  the  distinction?  Disciple  is 
from  the  Latin  disco,  to  learn.  The  disciple  was  a 
learner.  All  who  followed  Christ  were  learners, 
pupils,  disciples.  But  the  apostle  is  one  sent  forth, 
from  the  Greek  apostello,  from  apo,  forth,  and  stello, 
send,  and  he  was  chosen  and  qualified  as  a  trusted 
messenger  who  could  be  sent  forth  with  the  mes- 
sage; hence  the  apostles  were  naturally  the  leaders 
of  the  Christian  host. 

Often  we  can  correct  misspellings  by  attention  to 
etymology.  In  his  recent  reading  the  writer  came 
across  this  sentence :  "He  seemed  more  in  harmony 
with  these  straightened  surroundings  than  his  ap- 
pearance would  indicate."  The  true  word  is 
straitened,  which  in  this  sense  is  derived  from  the 
old  French  estreit,  from  the  Latin  strictus,  drawn 
together.  From  the  same  source  we  have  the  noun 
strait  for  the  narrow  passage  connecting  two  great 
bodies  of  water,  as  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar,  Bering 
Strait.  It  is  ultimately  from  the  Latin  stringo,  con- 
tract. Straitened  circumstances  are  circumstances 
where  your  means  are  narrow  and  shut  you  in. 
Very  often  if  a  man  could  straighten  his  circum- 
stances with  a  ght  and  make  them  straight  he  would 
not  be  straitened.  But  straighten  is  from  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  strcccan,  stretch,  of  which  the  past  participle 
is  streht   (pronounced  straight),  and  that  means 


244  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

"stretched";  so  the  straight  hne  is  the  stretched  line. 
You  see  at  once  that  if  you  draw  the  line  taut  it 
must  be  straight.  The  taut  line  has  simply  one 
direction,  and  the  stretched  line  is  the  straight  line. 

It  may  be  interesting  to  know  that  the  word  rhyme 
is  ordinarily  misspelled  in  our  literature.  It  is 
spelled  and  given  in  many  dictionaries  as  rhyme, 
but  some  of  the  best  writers  now — and  with  them 
the  Standard  Dictionary — give  rime.  The  word 
rime  is  from  the  Anglo-Saxon  riman,  from  the 
noun  rim,  number.  You  know  the  word  number  is 
applied  to  poetry.  Pope  says,  "I  lisped  in  numbers 
for  the  numbers  came."  A  line,  for  instance,  con- 
tains five  feet,  and  you  get  a  certain  number  of 
syllables.  You  come  to  the  end  of  the  line,  then  you 
start  with  another  line.  So  poetry,  with  syllables 
counted  off,  was  called  formerly  numbers.  That  is 
the  idea  of  the  Saxon  rime.  Our  balancing  of 
similar-sounding  syllables  is  a  later  signification  of 
rime.  But  the  word  is  rime,  and  the  way  it  comes 
to  be  rhyme  is  that  in  the  sixteenth  century  scholars 
who  did  not  know  etymology,  but  thought  they  did, 
supposed  that  rime  should  be  spelled  like  rhythm. 
But  rhythm  is  from  the  Greek,  while  rime,  as  stated 
above,  is  from  the  Anglo-Saxon,  and  has  no  con- 
nection with  rhythm.  There  may  be  rhythm  with- 
out rime,  as  in  blank  verse,  or  rime  without  rhythm, 
as  in  various  kinds  of  doggerel. 

Another  word,  the  origin  of  which  may  cause 
surprize,  is  the  word  tongue.     Its  real  spelling  is 


ENGLISH  ETYMOLOGY  245 

tung,  from  the  Anglo-Saxon  tunge.  We  have 
dropped  the  mute  e  from  almost  all  the  Saxon 
words,  and  following  that  analogy  we  should  have 
tung.  The  Norman-French  wanted  to  make  the 
word  like  their  French  words,  longiie,  etc.,  and  so 
they  transformed  the  tung  into  tongue.  Whether 
anybody  will  ever  be  brave  enough  to  go  back  to 
the  phonetic  spelling,  which  is  correct,  is  a  question. 
Special  interest  may  be  found  in  tracing  certain 
final  syllables.  For  instance,  the  simple  English 
word  tract,  which  means  either  a  wide  expanse  of 
space  or  a  long  stretch  of  duration,  is  a  treatise  that 
draws  out  some  train  of  thought  to  a  definite  con- 
clusion. We  find  that  in  either  sense  the  word  is 
ultimately  from  the  Latin  traho,  draw.  Let  us  see 
what  we  can  do  with  this  word.  We  have  a  some- 
what different  derivative  from  the  same  source  in 
traction,  often  applied  to  the  drawing  of  cars  over 
a  railway,  as  in  the  phrase  electric  traction.  This 
word  tract  is  often  used  as  a  concluding  syllable  in 
combination  with  various  prefixes.  In  abstract  the 
Latin  ab  or  abs,  from,  is  the  prefix,  and  abstract  is 
thus  to  take  from  or  away.  The  philosopher  ab- 
stracts one  idea  from  all  others,  so  as  to  think  of 
that  alone,  if  he  can.  He  may  become  himself  so 
abstracted  in  the  endeavor  as  to  be  indifferent  to 
cold  or  heat  or  hunger,  or  to  any  of  his  surround- 
ings, as  is  related  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton.  While  in 
this  condition  a  thief  might  abstract  his  purse.  In 
each  of  these  various  derived  senses  the  primary 


246  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

meaning  "to  take  away"  controls.  But  in  attract 
we  have  the  Latin  ad,  to  (which  becomes  at  before 
the  t  in  tract),  so  that  to  attract  is  to  draw  to.  Thus 
the  sun  attracts  the  earth  to  itself  with  such  force 
that  if  the  centrifugal  motion  of  our  planet  were 
checked  by  a  very  little  the  attraction  would  draw 
it  down  upon  the  globe  of  fire. 

Running  down  the  alphabet  a  little  way  we  find 
the  prefix  con,  the  equivalent  of  the  Latin  cum, 
with ;  and  contract  signifies  draw  together ;  the  cold 
draws  together  the  particles  of  iron  or  steel,  and 
the  rail  contracts.  Persons  draw  together  on  the 
conditions  of  an  agreement,  and  contract  to  perform 
it.  They  enter  into  a  contract,  a  drawing  together, 
coming  to  an  agreement.  Again,  using  the  preposi- 
tion de,  away  from,  off  from,  we  have  detract,  draw 
off  from,  pick  away.  The  invidious  critic  does  not 
deny  all  the  excellencies  or  achievements  of  his  vic- 
tim. By  no  means.  He  simply  detracts,  takes  off, 
picks  away  a  little  here  and  there.  The  success  was 
not  quite  so  splendid,  the  motive  was  not  quite  so 
lofty,  the  character  is  not  quite  so  high  and  pure  as 
supposed,  and  somehow,  one  scarcely  knows  how, 
the  luster  and  glory  of  a  life  are  dimmed  by  the 
detraction,  the  taking  away. 

Passing  to  another  Latin  preposition  in  d,  we  have 
di  or  dis,  apart  or  aside,  and  with  this  we  form 
distract,  draw  apart  or  aside.  To  distract  is  to  draw 
in  different  directions,  away  from  the  main  pur- 
pose.    In  the  crush  at  the  railway  station,  for  in- 


ENGLISH  ETYMOLOGY  247 

stance,  pending  the  departure  of  a  train,  one  can  not 
think  clearly,  can  not  find  his  ticket  or  his  money, 
because  his  thoughts  are  distracted,  drawn  aside  in 
so  many  different  directions  by  the  crowds,  the 
faces,  the  noises,  and  the  hurry.  His  thoughts  are 
scattered  and  he  is  distracted.  One  is  watching  for 
some  signal  to  be  given,  or  for  the  hand  to  reach 
some  precise  instant  on  the  dial,  but  fails  to  observe 
it  because  his  attention  is  just  then  distracted,  drawn 
aside,  by  some  sudden  sight  or  sound  from  a  dif- 
ferent direction.  Again,  in  the  letter  e  we  find  a 
preposition  also  of  Latin  origin,  e  or  ex,  meaning 
out,  or  out  of,  and  with  this  we  form  extract,  to 
take  out.  Thus  a  tooth  is  extracted,  and  anyone 
who  has  been  through  the  process  readily  perceives 
that  the  expression  to  abstract  the  tooth  would  by 
no  means  meet  the  demands  of  the  occasion.  In  a 
somewhat  different  sense  we  say,  when  plants  or 
flowers  are  crushed  and  steeped  or  distilled,  that  we 
extract,  or  draw  off,  their  essence  or  perfume,  we 
form  an  extract.  In  the  court-room  it  is  a  triumph 
when  a  lawyer  by  keen  cross-questioning  extracts 
the  truth — draws  it  forth — from  a  reluctant  witness. 
Pro — forth  or  forward — forms  protract,  draw 
forth,  draw  forward,  or  onward.  Whoever  has  sat 
through  an  address  that  seemed  to  be  drawn  out, 
like  tape  from  a  conjurer's  mouth,  with  no  apparent 
limit  and  no  assurance  that  it  ever  will  end,  can 
appreciate  the  statement  that  that  discourse  was 
protracted.    We  have  the  Anglo-Saxon  translation 


248  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

in  our  common  speech,  "long-drawn-out,"  which 
gives  exactly  the  same  idea.  We  find  a  sharp  op- 
posite to  the  prefix  just  mentioned  in  the  Latin 
preposition  re,  back,  forming  retract,  draw  back, 
take  back.  The  accuser  retracts  the  accusation. 
We  say  in  the  colloquial  phrase,  "I  take  it  all  back," 
that  is,  I  retract.  In  a  different  way  the  claws  of 
the  cat  are  retractile,  because  they  can  be  drawn 
back  at  pleasure  and  sheathed  in  the  velvet  paw. 
We  have  still  another  preposition  forming  one  of 
the  tract  compounds,  viz. :  sub — under — forming 
subtract,  take  under,  and  we  see  its  meaning  when 
we  do  the  example  and  write  under  the  number 
to  be  diminished  the  number  that  is  to  be  taken 
away.  You  subtract  the  less  from  the  greater,  you 
take  it  from  under  the  greater  number. 

Thus  this  single  word  tract,  by  simple  changes 
of  prefixes,  gives  us  a  rich  variety  of  meanings. 
If  any  one  objects  that  these  are  all  Latin  com- 
pounds, it  is  to  be  answered  that  one  of  the  crowning 
excellencies  of  the  English  language  is  that  it  can 
thus  adopt  forms  from  other  tongues  and  make 
them  thoroughly  at  home  within  its  own  domain, 
so  that  these  various  Latin  compounds  have  come 
to  be  English  household  words. 

In  a  similar  way  take  the  syllable  vent.  That  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  noun  vent,  as  when  we  speak 
of  the  vent  of  a  cask  or  of  a  gun.  It  is  from  the 
Latin  venio,  come.  Advent  is  a  coming  to ;  we  use 
it  in  a  great  and  high  sense,  as  the  advent  of  Christ ; 


ENGLISH  ETYMOLOGY  249 

the  Second  Adventists  are  those  who  are  looking 
for  Christ's  second  coming,  a  coming  for  perma- 
nence, a  coming  to  stay.  We  don't  speak  of  the 
advent  of  the  burglar  because  he  comes  without 
intending  to  stay,  and  desires  to  come  as  unosten- 
tatiously as  he  possibly  can;  but  we  do  use  advent 
in  referring  to  the  coming  of  some  great  personage 
or  some  great  occasion. 

We  have  convent,  the  coming  together.  That  is 
applied  to  an  assembly  of  persons  who,  while  they 
have  retired  from  the  world,  yet  live  together  in 
one  large  building,  or  series  of  buildings,  as  monks 
or  nuns.  Now  if  you  trace  that  word  convent,  you 
will  find  that  it  has  a  correlative  in  monastery, 
which  is  from  the  Greek  monos,  alone,  emphasizing 
the  fact  that  each  one  of  the  recluses  lives  alone. 
If  you  follow  that  out,  you  will  come  to  the  Greek 
eremite,  and  from  that  you  get  the  English  hermit. 
Eremite,  ultimately  from  eremos,  solitary,  in  the  old 
times  was  taken  over  from  the  Greek  into  English, 
and  the  English  transformed  it  to  the  Saxon  type. 
They  made  it  hermit.  As  soon  as  you  hear  hermit 
you  think  of  the  recluse  with  his  long  hair  and  long 
white  beard  and  his  rough  dress,  living  somewhere 
in  a  cave.  The  old  picture  comes  before  you.  But 
if  you  take  eremite,  that  seems  very  artificial,  be- 
cause you  get  the  Greek  word  scarcely  changed, 
since  this  was  adopted  at  a  later  day,  when  the 
language  had  become  fixed. 

We  have  prevent,  to  come  before.    The  original 


250  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

idea  is  that  one  does  something  before  another  can 
act,  as  we  say,  in  colloquial  English,  "getting  ahead 
of  him,"  that  is,  to  prevent.  You  will  find  the  word 
used  in  the  Scriptures  in  the  sense  of  anticipating. 
As,  "when  Peter  came  into  the  house,  Jesus  pre- 
vented him";  that  is,  Jesus  spoke  first.  We  have 
dropped  that  meaning  and  we  use  the  word  in  the 
sense  of  getting  in  advance  of  some  person  or  thing 
so  as  to  keep  off  some  action  or  result. 

A  great  number  of  other  such  forms  might  be 
cited,  but  we  must  pass  on  to  note  a  few  suffixes. 
Of  these  we  shall  consider  chiefly  the  form  ness. 
The  ending  ness  is  used  to  form  nouns  from  almost 
all  adjectives,  but  there  is  an  abuse  of  it  which  it  is 
very  important  to  avoid.  A  noun  is  often  formed 
in  ness  when  there  is  a  perfectly  good  noun  to  start 
with;  thus,  it  is  not  well  to  say  accurateness,  when 
you  have  the  word  accuracy.  It  is  not  well  to  say 
independentncss  when  there  is  the  noun  indepen- 
dence. Rationality  is  better  than  mtionalness,  and 
resolution  is  better  than  resoluteness.  Courage  is 
infinitely  better  than  courage ousness.  Courageous 
is  an  adjective  derived  from  courage,  and  to  get  the 
noun  there  is  no  need  to  put  ness  after  that  adjec- 
tive, but  simply  to  take  the  noun  from  which  the 
adjective  started,  and  say  courage.  Then,  indiffer- 
ence should  not  be  supplanted  by  indifferentness; 
nor  insanity  by  insaneness ;  deliberation  by  deliher- 
ateness;  simplicity  by  simpleness ;  eloquence  by  elo- 
quentness;  obstinacy  by  obstinateness.    Where  there 


ENGLISH  ETYMOLOGY  251 

is  a  perfectly  good  noun  to  express  the  meaning, 
ness  should  not  be  affixed  to  the  adjective.  That  is 
always  a  cheap  way  of  supplying  the  noun  you  want, 
and  gives  an  aspect  of  cheapness  to  your  style,  in- 
dicating a  lack  of  reading  and  of  knowledge  of  the 
language.  There  are,  however,  a  few  exceptions. 
Take  the  word  truthful,  derived  from  truth,  and 
truthfulness  has  a  special  meaning,  which  truth 
does  not  wholly  carry.  Similarly  with  faithful; 
faithfulness  carries  a  meaning  which  is  not  so  clearly 
expressed  by  faith.  Faith  was  formerly  used  in  that 
sense,  as :  "He  kept  faith  with  me."  To  speak  of 
one's  faith  in  that  sense  is  strictly  correct ;  but  faith- 
fulness as  expressing  the  quality  is  the  better  form. 
By  considering  words  in  this  way  each  word 
becomes  an  entity,  and  language  comes  to  have  a 
perspective. 


IX 
SPECIMENS  OF  POWER 


IX 


SPECIMENS  OF  POWER 

Sometimes  we  appreciate  the  various  elements 
of  literary  power  most  vividly  through  brief  selec- 
tions, as  we  see  a  sudden  beauty  in  the  child-angels 
of  the  San  Sisto  Madonna  when  presented  by  them- 
selves, separated  from  the  larger  work  of  which  they 
form  a  part.  In  the  Soldiers'  Home  Park  at  Wash- 
ington the  trees  at  one  point  have  been  trimmed  in, 
leaving  an  opening  known  as  the  Capitol  Vista,  and, 
as  you  stand  on  a  knoll  and  look  southward,  the 
vast  white  building,  with  its  lofty  dome,  rises  from 
afar  on  your  vision  with  a  beauty  such  as  does  not 
crown  it  when  viewed  merely  as  one  feature  of  the 
wide  landscape.  In  our  reading  we  do  well  to  cull 
and  con  salient  passages,  those  of  special  strength 
and  beauty,  to  mark  them  in  our  books,  to  learn 
them  by  heart.  They  become  strategic  points  of  in- 
terest, and  we  can  recover  the  connection  before 
and  after  at  will.  Let  us  here  present  a  few — 
chance  specimens  gathered  here  and  there,  illustrat- 
ing as  by  flashes  the  power  and  beauty  of  which 
our  literature  is  full. 

Glance  backward  across  three  centuries  to  the 
Elizabethan  period  and  note  a  soldier's  portrayal 
of  a  peaceful  rural  scene.     Everybody  has  heard 

255 


256  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

of  Sir  Philip  Sidney  and  his  Arcadia,  but  how  many- 
have  ever  read  a  line  of  it?  Study  the  following 
extract,  and  its  beauty  will  grow  upon  you : 

"The  third  day  after,  in  the  time  that  the  morning  did 
strow  roses  and  violets  in  the  heavenly  floore  against  the 
comming  of  the  sunne,  the  nightingales  (striving  one 
with  another  v^hich  could  in  most  daintie  varietie  recount 
their  wrong-caused  sorrow),  made  them  put  off  their 
sleep;  and,  rising  from  under  a  tree,  which  that  night 
had  bin  their  pavilion,  they  went  on  their  journey,  which 
by-and-by  welcomed  Musidorus'  eies  wearied  with  the 
wasted  soile  of  Laconia,  with  delightfull  prospects.  There 
were  hills  which  garnished  their  proud  heights  with  stately 
trees ;  humble  vallies  whose  base  estate  seemed  comforted 
with  the  refreshing  of  silver  rivers ;  medowes  enamelled 
with  all  sorts  of  eye-pleasing  flowers;  thickets,  which, 
being  lined  with  most  pleasant  shade,  were  witnessed  so 
to  by  the  cheerfull  disposition  of  many  well-tuned  birds; 
each  pasture  stored  with  sheep,  feeding  with  sober  se- 
curities, while  the  prettie  lambes,  with  bleating  oratorie, 
craved  the  dammes  comfort;  here  a  shepheard's  boy  pip- 
ing as  if  he  should  never  be  old;  there  a  young  shep- 
heardesse  knitting,  and  singing  withall:  and  it  seemed 
that  her  voice  comforted  her  hands  to  worke,  and  her 
hands  kept  time  to  her  voice  musick.  As  for  the  houses 
of  the  countrey,  for  many  houses  came  under  their  eye, 
they  were  all  scattered,  no  two  being  one  by  the  other, 
and  yet  not  so  farre  off  that  it  barred  mutual  succor;  a 
show,  as  it  were,  of  an  accompanable  solitarinesse,  and 
of  a  civil  wildenesse 

"But  this  countrey  where  you  now  set  your  foot  is 

Arcadia This    countrey   being   thus   decked   with 

peace,  and  the  child  of  peace,  good  husbandry,  these 
houses  you  see  so  scattered  are  of  men,  as  we  two  are, 
that  live  upon  the  commoditie  of  their  sheepe,  and  there- 
fore, in  the  division  of  the  Arcadian  estate,  are  termed 


SPECIMENS  OF  POWER  257 

shepheards;  a  happy  people  wanting  [lacking]  little,  be- 
cause they  desire  not  much." 

— Sidney,  "Arcadia." 

The  Arcadia  was  written  in  1580  and  published 
in  1590;  yet  we  can  read  it  freely  to-day,  merely 
remarking  some  oddities  of  spelling,  and  a  certain 
quaintness  of  language  which  only  adds  to  its  charm, 
as  in  that  thoroughly  English  ideal  of  country  life 
with  homes  entirely  separate  and  independent,  "no 
two  being  one  by  the  other,"  yet  not  too  far  re- 
moved, producing  the  effect  of  "an  accompanable 
[companionable]  solitarinesse  [solitude]  and  of  a 
civil  wildenesse  [wildness]." 

From  the  same  period  let  us  choose  a  poetic 
description  of  a  scene  of  idyllic  peace,  where  the 
music  of  the  verse  even  enhances  the  beauty  of  the 
scene  which  it  brings,  as  in  a  fair  picture,  before 
our  very  sight : 

"A  little  lowly  hermitage  it  was, 

Down  in  a  dale,  hard  by  a  forests  side. 
Far  from  resort  of  people,  that  did  pass 
In  travel  to  and  fro;  a  little  wide 
There  was  a  holy  chappel  edifide, 
Wherein  the  Hermit  wont  to  say 
His  holy  things  each  morn  and  even-tide : 
Thereby  a  chrystal  stream  did  gently  play, 
Which  from  a  sacred  fountain  welled  forth  alway." 
— Spenser,  "Faerie  Queene,"  canto  i,  st.  34. 

That  is  our  own  English  very  slightly  changed. 
The  Elizabethan  era  seems  not  so  very  far  away. 
Contrasting  with  the  quiet  of  the  "little  lowly 

17 


258  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

hermitage,"  consider  a  passage  full  of  life  and 
action,  the  opening  stanzas  of  Scott's  "Lady  of  the 
Lake" : 

"The  stag  at  eve  had  drunk  his  fill, 
Where  danced  the  moon  on  Monan's  rill, 
And  deep  his  midnight  lair  had  made 
In  lone  Glenartney's  hazel  shade." 

At  first,  how  calm  the  scene !  "The  stag  had  drunk 
his  fill"  in  the  silence,  because  there  came  no  sight 
nor  sound,  no  odor  on  the  evening  breeze,  to  alarm 
his  quick,  watchful  sense.  We  see  the  dimly  lighted 
glen  and  the  gentle  flow  of  the  stream  that  made 
the  moon-beams  "dance"  on  the  rippling  waves. 

Then  we  observe  the  wary  watcher  seeking  his 
restful  couch  "deep  in  the  hazel  shade,"  and  the 
still  night  glides  by. 

Sharply  comes  the  transition  to  earliest  dawn. 
Before  the  light  has  flooded  the  earth,  while  it  is 
touching  only  the  mountain-tops,  the  rising  sun, 
hidden  by  the  mountain,  sending  up  its  first  rays 
to  light,  as  with  a  "red  beacon,"  the  highest  peak, 
disturbance  comes : 

"But,  when  the  sun  in  beacon  red 
Had  kindled  on  Benvoirlich's  head, 
The  deep-mouth'd  bloodhound's  heavy  bay 
Resounded  up  the  rocky  way, 
And  faint,  from  farther  distance  borne, 
Were  heard  the  clanging  hoof  and  horn." 

The  verse  and  the  very  words  fit  the  changing  scene. 
The  broad,  open  vowels — the  "deep-mouth'd  blood- 


SPECIMENS  OF  POWER  259 

hound's" — "bay" — "resounded" — boom  with  the 
rude  intrusion  "up  the  rocky  way." 

"As  Chief  who  hears  his  warder  call, 
'To  arms !  the  foemen  storm  the  wall,' " 

Here  the  words  accelerate: — 

"As  chief  |  who  hears  |  his  ward-  |  er  call ;" 
— while  the  next  broken  line, 

"To  arms !  |  the  foe-  |  men  storm  |  the  wall" 
rings  with  the  sharp  alarm. 

"The  antler'd  monarch  of  the  waste 
Sprung  from  his  heathery  couch  in  haste. 
But,  ere  his  fleet  career  he  took, 
The  dew-drops  from  his  flanks  he  shook; 
Like  crested  leader  proud  and  high 
Toss'd  his  beam'd  frontlet  to  the  sky; 
A  moment  gazed  adown  the  dale, 
A  moment  snuff'd  the  tainted  gale, 
A  moment  listen'd  to  the  cry 
That  thicken'd  as  the  chase  drew  nigh." 

The  "crested  leader"  proves  himself  "monarch  of 
the  waste,"  calmly  pausing  to  shake  "the  dew-drops 
from  his  flanks"  and  to  take  the  measure  of  his 
foes,  as  with  lifted  head  he  "gazed  adown  the  dale." 

"Then,  as  the  headmost  foes  appear'd, 
With  one  brave  bound  the  copse  he  clear'd. 
And,  stretching  forward  free  and  far, 
Sought  the  wild  heaths  of  Uam-Var." 

There  is  the  sudden  bound  across  the  barrier. 
Then  the  alliterative  verse, 


260  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

"And  stretch-  |  ing,  for-  |  ward  free  |  and  far," 

pictures  the  swift,  sustained  run  of  the  hunted  stag 
in  the  pride  of  his  morning  strength. 

Again  a  change !  The  "view"  is  a  special  hunting 
term.  It  denotes  a  moment  of  tremendous  excite- 
ment. When  the  game  that  has  been  warily  tracked 
appears  suddenly  in  "view" — in  plain  sight — ^before 
the  pursuers'  eyes,  the  deep  "bay"  of  the  tracing 
hounds  breaks  instantly  into  wild,  sharp  cries.  The 
verse  changes  accordingly.  The  rest  comes  first, — 
and  a  verb  of  sharp,  wild  outcry : 

"Yell'd  on  the  view  the  opening  pack ; 
Rock,  glen,  and  cavern,  paid  them  back." 

Then  a  line  of  hard,  jagged  sounds, — "rock,  glen, 
paid,  back," — represents  the  harsh  confusion,  in- 
tensified soon : — 

"To  many  a  mingled  sound  at  once 
The  awaken'd  mountain  gave  response. 
A  hundred  dogs  bay'd  deep  and  strong, 
Clatter'd  a  hundred  steeds  along. 
Their  peal  the  merry  horns  rung  out, 
A  hundred  voices  join'd  the  shout; 
With  hark  and  whoop  and  wild  halloo, 
No  rest  Benvoirlich's  echoes  knew." 

The  varying  elements  that  make  up  the  riot  of  the 
hunt  in  full  cry  are  crowded  swiftly  together. 

"Far  from  the  tumult  fled  the  roe; 
Close  in  her  covert  cower'd  the  doe." 

The  wild  creatures  of  the  waste  fly  or  crouch  before 
the  dread  invasion. 


SPECIMENS   OF  POWER  261 

"The  falcon,  from  her  cairn  on  high, 
Cast  on  the  rout  a  wondering  eye, 
Till  far  beyond  her  piercing  ken, 
The  hurricane  had  swept  the  glen." 

All  the  human  riot  is  minimized  among  nature's 
vast  solitudes. 

But  how  tell  the  story  of  the  receding  tumult? 
How  restore  the  scene  to  nature's  calm  again? 
Four  lines  suffice : 

"Faint,  and  more  faint,  its  failing  din 
Returned  from  cavern,  cliff,  and  linn. 
And  silence  settled,  wide  and  still, 
On  the  lone  wood  and  mighty  hill." 

The  whole  scene  is  presented  in  forty-six  lines! 
The  reader  seems  to  be  swept  from  the  peaceful 
evening  through  the  rushing  onset  with  the  hunters, 
at  dawn;  then  to  be  made  to  pause  while  nature 
reasserts  her  reign  amid  "silence  wide  and  still." 

The  English  language  does  not  lack  in  picturing 
power,  nor  in  sudden  adaptation  to  the  most  varied 
and  contrasted  scenes. 

Now  study  Ruskin's  sumptuous  and  splendid 
description  of  "Dawn  in  the  Alps."  If  you  have 
not  been  among  the  Alps,  you  will  probably  think 
the  picture  overdrawn,  but,  if  you  have  traveled 
there,  you  will  be  aware  that  all  is  but  the  struggling 
effort  of  human  language  to  set  forth  a  glory  that 
is  beyond  expression. 

DAWN  IN  THE  ALPS 
"And  then  wait  yet  for  one  hour,  until  the  East  again 
becomes  purple,  and  the  heaving  mountains,  rolling  against 


262  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

it  in  darkness  like  waves  of  a  wild  sea,  are  drowned  one 
by  one  in  the  glory  of  its  burnings;  watch  the  white 
glaciers  blaze  in  their  winding  paths  about  the  mountains, 
like  mighty  serpents  with  scales  of  fire;  watch  the 
columnar  peaks  of  solitary  snow  kindling  downwards, 
chasm  by  chasm,  each  in  itself  a  new  morning;  their  long 
avalanches  cast  down  in  keen  streams  brighter  than  the 
lightning,  sending  each  his  tribute  of  driven  snow  like 
altar-smoke  up  to  heaven;  the  rose-light  of  their  silent 
domes  flashing  that  heaven  about  them  and  above  them, 
piercing  with  purer  beams  through  its  purple  lines  of 
lifted  cloud,  casting  a  new  glory  on  every  wreath  as  it 
passes  by,  until  the  whole  heaven — one  scarlet  canopy — 
is  interwoven  with  a  roof  of  waving  flame  and  burning 
vault  beyond  vault,  as  with  the  drifted  wings  of  many 
companies  of  angels ;  and  then,  when  you  look  no  more 
for  gladness,  and  when  you  are  bowed  down  with  fear 
and  love  for  the  Maker  and  Doer  of  all  this,  tell  me 
who  has  best  delivered  his  message  unto  men." 

How  much  of  the  majesty  of  nature  human  words 
here  have  told !  Contrast  with  the  brightening  east 
the  "heaving  mountains  rolling  against  it  in  dark- 
ness like  waves  of  a  wild  sea";  as  the  mind  gives 
to  the  giant  forms  in  the  changing  light  the  sugges- 
tion, not  of  mere  inert  masses,  but  of  vast  active 
agencies,  that  one  word  "rolling"  tells  the  story — 
"rolling  against  it  like  waves  of  a  wild  sea."  Mark 
how  "the  white  glaciers  bla^c  in  their  winding  paths 
about  the  mountains" ;  change  but  the  one  word 
"blaze"  to  "gleam,"  and  see  how  at  once  you  have 
dimmed  the  scene.  Note  the  "driven  snow," — per- 
haps the  whitest  thing  in  the  visible  creation,  white 
with  an  inner,  living  light — rising  "like  altar-smoke 
up  to  heaven";  change  that  "altar-smoke"  to  "the 


SPECIMENS  OF  POWER  263 

smoke  of  altars,"  and  observe  how  you  have  im- 
peded the  expression,  how  heavy  it  becomes.  Catch 
the  vision  of  the  "purple  lines  of  lifted  cloud";  you 
know  how  the  mists  of  the  valleys  rise,  "lifted"  by 
the  beams  of  the  morning  sun  into  low-floating 
clouds,  while  the  same  sun  sheds  "a  new  glory  on 
every  wreath,  as  it  passes  by."  Then  you  begin  to 
perceive  how  much  is  in  the  magic  of  words,  and 
how  rich  the  language  must  be  that  can  supply  the 
master  with  store  of  words  fitted  to  tell  the  glory  of 
an  Alpine  sunrise. 

Take  now,  from  Scott's  always  readable  prose, 
a  description  of  more  placid  beauty: 


SUNSET  BY  THE  SEA 

"The  sun  was  now  resting  his  huge  disk  upon  the  edge 
of  the  level  ocean,  and  gilded  the  accumulation  of  tower- 
ing clouds  through  which  he  had  traveled  the  livelong 
day,  and  which  now  assembled  on  all  sides,  like  misfor- 
tunes and  disasters  around  a  sinking  empire  and  falling 
monarch.  Still,  however,  his  dying  splendor  gave  a 
somber  magnificence  to  the  massive  congregation  of 
vapors,  forming  out  of  the  unsubstantial  gloom  the  show 
of  pyramids  and  towers,  some  touched  with  gold,  some 
with  purple,  some  with  a  hue  of  deep  and  dark  red.  The 
distant  sea,  stretched  beneath  this  varied  and  gorgeous 
canopy,  lay  almost  portentously  still,  reflecting  back  the 
dazzling  and  level  beams  of  the  descending  luminary,  and 
the  splendid  coloring  of  the  clouds  against  which  he  was 
setting.  Nearer  the  beach  the  tide  rippled  onward  in 
waves  of  sparkling  silver  that  imperceptibly,  yet  rapidly, 
gained  upon  the  sand." 

— Scott,  "The  Antiquary." 


264  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

The  apparent  vastness  of  sun  or  moon  when  near 
the  horizon  is  told  in  one  short,  strong  word,  "huge" ; 
this  meets  the  optical  sense,  and  you  seem  to  see  the 
descending  sun;  the  word  "resting"  intensifies  the 
effect,  picturing  what  appears  to  eye  and  thought 
at  the  first  sudden  glance.  The  "towering  clouds — 
assembled,"  "the  massive  congregation  of  vapors," 
are  described  in  words  whose  largeness  fits  the  mag- 
nitude of  the  objects;  substitute  "the  tall  clouds," 
and  how  flat  the  expression!  "the  lofty  clouds" 
would  seem  to  lift  them  out  of  touch  with  the  earth; 
but  that  which  is  "towering"  has  its  foundation  on 
the  earth,  while  its  top  reaches  far  aloft;  through 
that  single  word  we  see  the  clouds  banked  on  the 
horizon  and  rising  far  up  into  the  sky.  Observe 
the  plaintive  touch  given  by  the  phrases  "sinking 
empire,"  "falling  monarch,"  "somber  magnificence." 
Study  the  phrase  "forming  out  of  the  unsubstantial 
gloom  the  show  of  pyramids  and  towers,"  and  you 
see  that  the  word  "unsubstantial"  is  just  fitted  to 
its  place;  it  contrasts  the  light  material  of  the  clouds 
with  the  solidity  of  the  structures  they  seemed  to 
represent;  at  the  same  time,  it  is  a  slow,  heavy,  and 
ponderous  word,  and  so  exactly  fitted  to  the  scene 
of  "gloom"  described;  leave  the  adjective  out  alto- 
gether, so  that  the  phrase  becomes  "forming  out  of 
the  gloom,"  and  you  feel  that  the  description  has 
lost  much;  try  substitution  of  some  other  word,  as 
light,  slight,  thin,  filmy,  airy,  aerial,  ethereal, 
evanescent,  vaporous,  vapory,  and  you  see  instantly 


SPECIMENS  OF  POWER  265 

that  by  any  one  of  those  the  description  would  be 
ruined.  Passing  to  the  closing  sentence,  note  the 
rhythmic  movement  of  the  words,  appealing  both  to 
eye  and  ear:  "the  tide  rippled  onward  in  waves  of 
sparkling  silver;"  the  "imperceptibly"  and  "rapidly" 
are  longer  words,  but  with  liquid  vowels,  and  by 
their  accent  fall  into  the  same  measure,  which  is 
completed  in  the  smooth  final  phrase  "gained  upon 
the  sand." 

It  will  not  often  be  possible  in  our  brief  space 
thus  to  analyze  selections,  but  these  notes  on  the 
passages  thus  far  cited  will  indicate  how  the  work 
may  be  done,  and  each  reader  may  follow  out  the 
method  for  himself  without  any  great  critical  ap- 
paratus. Simply  try  from  point  to  point  in  any 
selection  that  interests  you  to  substitute  other 
words;  see  if  they  produce  the  same  effect,  and,  if 
not,  wherein  they  fail.  Sometimes  get  the  thought 
of  the  passage  into  your  mind,  and  then  rewrite  as 
best  you  can  without  looking  at  the  book.  Unless 
you  have  memorized  the  words,  you  will  be 
sure  to  find  that  you  have  made  many  changes. 
Wherever  your  expression  is  inferior  to  your 
author's,  study  to  know  the  reason  why;  and  as 
you  find  out  why  your  words  are  less  desirable, 
you  will  by  that  very  act  perceive  why  his  are  more 
effective.  Skill  in  such  judgment  will  grow  upon 
you,  will  increase  your  enjoyment  of  reading,  and 
will  react  upon  your  own  spoken  or  written  style. 

Pass  now  from  sunset  to  night,  and  from  prose 
to  poetry: 


266  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

A  WINTER  NIGHT 

How  beautiful  this  night !    The  balmiest  sigh 

Which  vernal  zephyrs  breathe  in  evening's  ear 

Were  discord  to  the  speaking  quietude 

That  wraps  the  moveless  scene.    Heaven's  ebon  vault, 

Studded  with  stars  unutterably  bright, 

Seems  like  a  canopy  which  love  has  spread 

Above  the  sleeping  world.     Yon  gentle  hills 

Robed  in  a  garment  of  untrodden  snow; 

Yon  darksome  rocks  whence  icicles  depend, 

So  stainless  that  their  white  and  glittering  spires 

Tinge  not  the  moon's  pure  beam ;  yon  castled  steep, 

Whose  banner  hangeth  o'er  the  time-worn  tower 

So  idly  that  rapt  fancy  deemeth  it 

A  metaphor  of  peace ; — all  form  a  scene 

Where  musing  solitude  might  love  to  lift 

Her  soul  above  this  sphere  of  earthliness; 

Where  silence  undisturbed  might  watch  alone. 

So  cold,  so  bright,  so  still ! 

— Shelley,  "Queen  Mob,"  pt.  iv. 

That  can  be  read  again,  and  again,  and  at  every 
reading  its  beauty  grows  upon  you.  The  study  walls 
seem  silently  to  move  away,  and  we  are  out  under 
the  open  sky  in  the  still,  perfect  night. 

Change  the  scene  again,  combine  night  with  storm, 
and  observe  how  the  language  responds  to  the 
sterner  harmonies  of  nature: 

AN  ALPINE  THUNDER-STORM 

"The  sky  is  changed! — and  such  a  change!     O  night 
And  storm,  and  darkness,  ye  are  wondrous  strong, 

Yet  lovely  in  your  strength 

Far  along, 
From  peak  to  peak,  the  rattling  crags  among 
Leaps  the  live  thunder !    Not  from  one  lone  cloud, 


SPECIMENS  OF  POWER  267 

But  every  mountain  now  hath  found  a  tongue, 
And  Jura  answers,  through  her  misty  shroud. 
Back  to  the  joyous  Alps,  who  call  to  her  aloud!" 

— Byron,  "Childe  Harold,"  can.  iii,  st.  92. 

Observe  the  power  of  that  succession  of  simple 
words,  ''night  and  storm  and  darkness."  They  alone 
set  forth  the  scene,  needing  no  adjective,  and  almost 
telling  the  story  without  a  verb.  The  "far  along" 
pictures  the  swift,  long  line  of  the  lightning  flash. 
The  shivering  effect  of  the  thunder-burst  is  heard 
in  the  phrase,  "the  rattling  crags."  The  clouds  have 
become  the  "misty  shroud"  of  the  mighty  Jura 
range,  yet  through  the  veil  she  answers  "the  joyous 
Alps,  who  call  to  her  aloud."  It  needed  but  a  poet 
to  see  and  hear,  and  the  power  of  the  language  was 
ready  with  instant  response  to  bring  to  the  soul 
of  every  one  who  can  but  read  the  sight  and  sound 
of  the  mighty  movement  of  nature. 

Turning  again  to  prose,  note  with  what  thrilling 
realism  one  of  England's  great  novelists  has  de- 
scribed an  ocean  scene  on  England's  storm-beaten 
shore : 

"When  we  came  in  sight  of  the  sea,  the  waves  on  the 
horizon,  caught  at  intervals  above  the  rolling  abyss,  were 
like  glimpses  of  another  shore  with  towers  and  build- 
ings  

"The  tremendous  sea  itself,  when  I  could  find  sufficient 
pause  to  look  at  it,  in  the  agitation  of  the  blinding  wind, 
the  flying  stones  and  sand,  and  the  awful  noise,  con- 
founded me.  As  the  high  watery  walls  came  rolling  in, 
and  at  their  highest  tumbled  into  surf,  they  looked  as  if 


268  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

the  least  would  engulf  the  town.  As  the  receding  wave 
swept  back  with  a  hoarse  roar,  it  seemed  to  scoop  out 
deep  caves  in  the  beach,  as  if  its  purpose  were  to  under- 
mine the  earth.  When  some  white-headed  billows  thun- 
dered on,  and  dashed  themselves  to  pieces  before  they 
reached  the  land,  every  fragment  of  the  late  whole  seemed 
possessed  by  the  full  might  of  its  wrath,  rushing  to  be 
gathered  to  the  company  of  another  monster.  Undulating 
hills  were  changed  to  valleys;  undulating  valleys  (some- 
times with  a  solitary  storm-bird  skimming  through  them) 
were  lifted  up  to  hills;  masses  of  water  shivered  and 
shook  the  beach  with  a  booming  sound;  every  shape 
tumultuously  rolled  on,  as  soon  as  made,  to  change  its 
shape  and  place,  and  beat  another  shape  and  place  away ; 
the  ideal  shore  on  the  horizon,  with  its  towers  and  build- 
ings, rose  and  fell;  the  clouds  flew  fast  and  thick;  I 
seemed  to  see  a  rending  and  upheaval  of  all  nature." 
— Dickens,  "David  Copperfield"  ch.  55. 

Would  you  have  a  battle-song  ?    Take  Campbell's 
historic  lay : 

YE  MARINERS  OF  ENGLAND 

"Ye  mariners  of  England ! 
That  guard  our  native  seas; 
Whose  flag  has  braved  a  thousand  years, 
The  battle  and  the  breeze ! 
Your  glorious  standard  launch  again 
To  match  another  foe ! 
And  sweep  through  the  deep. 
While  the  stormy  winds  do  blow : 
While  the  battle  rages  loud  and  long, 
And  the  stormy  winds  do  blow. 


Britannia  needs  no  bulwarks, 

No  towers  along  the  steep; 

Her  march  is  o'er  the  mountain  waves, 

Her  home  is  on  the  deep. 


SPECIMENS  OF  POWER  269 

With  thunders  from  her  native  oak, 
She  quells  the  floods  below — 
As  they  roar  on  the  shore, 
When  the  stormy  winds  do  blow ; 
When  the  battle  rages  loud  and  long, 
And  the  stormy  winds  do  blow. 

The  meteor  flag  of  England 

Shall  yet  terrific  burn; 

Till  danger's  troubled  night  depart, 

And  the  star  of  peace  return. 

Then,  then,  ye  ocean  warriors ! 

Our  song  and  feast  shall  flow 

To  the  fame  of  your  name, 

When  the  storm  has  ceased  to  blow ; 

When  the  fiery  fight  is  heard  no  more. 

And  the  storm  has  ceased  to  blow." 

The  very  swell  of  ocean  and  sweep  of  wind  are 
in  the  lines.  American  hearts  answer  to  their  music, 
for  we,  too,  love  the  ocean;  and,  though  in  defense 
of  other  seas  and  other  shores,  we,  too,  know  how 
to  "brave  the  battle  and  the  breeze." 

Now  read  two  stanzas  bringing  the  splendid 
movement  and  excitement  of  battle  into  touching 
contrast  with  nature's  quiet  beauty : 

WATERLOO 

"And  there  was  mounting  in  hot  haste :  the  steed, 
The  mustering  squadron,  and  the  clattering  car, 
Went  pouring  forward  with  impetuous  speed, 
And  swiftly  forming  in  the  ranks  of  war ; 
And  the  deep  thunder  peal  on  peal  afar; 
And  near,  the  beat  of  the  alarming  drum 
Roused  up  the  soldier  ere  the  morning  star; 
While  throng'd  the  citizens  with  terror  dumb, 


270  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

Or  whispering,  with  white  Hps — 'The   foe !  They  come ! 
they  come !" 


"And  Ardennes  waves  above  them  her  green  leaves, 
Dewy  with  Nature's  tear-drops,  as  they  pass, 
Grieving,  if  aught  inanimate  e'er  grieves, 
Over  the  unreturning  brave, — alas! 
Ere  evening  to  be  trodden  like  the  grass 
Which  now  beneath  them,  but  above  shall  grow 
In  its  next  verdure,  when  this  fiery  mass 
Of  living  valor,  rolling  on  the  foe. 
And  burning  with  high  hope,  shall  moulder  cold  and  low." 
— Byron,  "Childe  Harold,"  canto  iii,  st.  25,  27. 

Taking  these  two  stanzas  by  themselves,  one  can 
scarcely  read  them  without  tears.  How  the  splendor 
of  the  charge  melts  into  the  moan  for  the  slaughter 
of  heroes: — "the  unreturning  brave!"  Is  there 
lack  of  martial  energy,  stir  and  fire,  or  of  tender 
pathos  in  English  speech? 

Now  read  two  sonnets  of  Milton,  of  which  most 
persons  know  only  one  o'  two  ever-quoted  lines.  To 
gain  the  realistic  touch — to  see  what  the  privation 
meant  to  living  man  in  daily  life — ^and  to  feel  the 
sustained  sublimity  of  high  motive  pervading  that 
life,  one  needs  to  read  all  the  words  as  written  out 
of  that  grand  mind  and  heart. 

To  Cyriack  Skinner — 1655 

"Cyriack,  this  three  years'  day  these  eyes,  though  clear. 
To  outward  view,  of  blemish  or  of  spot, 
Bereft  of  light,  their  seeing  have  forgot; 
Nor  to  their  idle  orbs  doth  sight  appear 
Of  sun,  or  moon,  or  star,  throughout  the  year. 
Or  man,  or  woman.    Yet  I  argue  not 


SPECIMENS  OF  POWER  271 

Against  Heav'n's  hand  or  will,  nor  bate  a  jot 
Of  heart  or  hope ;  but  still  bear  up  and  steer 

Right  onward.    What  supports  me,  dost  thou  ask? 
The  conscience.  Friend,  t'  have  lost  them  overplied 
In  liberty's  defence,  my  noble  task. 

Of  which  all  Europe  talks  from  side  to  side. 

This  thought  might  lead  me  thro'  the  world's  vain  mask 
Content,  though  blind,  had  I  no  better  guide." 

On  His  Blindness — 1655 

"When  I  consider  how  my  light  is  spent 

Ere  half  my  days,  in  this  dark  world  and  wide, 

And  that  one  talent  which  is  death  to  hide. 

Lodged  with  me  useless,  though  my  soul  more  bent 

To  serve  therewith  my  Maker,  and  present 
My  true  account,  lest  he  returning  chide; 
'Doth  God  exact  day-labor,  light  denied?' 
I  fondly*  ask:     But  Patience,  to  prevent 

That  murmur,  soon  replies,  'God  doth  not  need 
Either  man's  work  or  his  own  gifts;  who  best 
Bear  his  mild  yoke,  they  serve  him  best :  his  state 

Is  kingly;    Thousands  at  his  bidding  speed. 
And  post  o'er  land  and  ocean  without  rest ; 
They  also  serve  who  only  stand  and  wait.' " 

See  how  Dryden  summarizes  in  four  lines  the 
conquering  career  of  the  great  Protector,  Cromwell: 

"Swift  and  resistless  through  the  land  he  passed, 
Like  that  bold  Greek  who  did  the  East  subdue. 
And  made  to  battles  such  heroic  haste, 
As  if  on  wings  of  victory  he  flew." 

TO  A  WATERFOWL 

"Whither,  midst  falling  dew. 
While  glow  the  heavens  with  the  last  steps  of  day, 
Far,  through  their  rosy  depths,  dost  thou  pursue 

Thy  solitary  way? 


In  the  old  sense  of  "weakljr"  or  "foolishly." 


272  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

Vainly  the  fowler's  eye 
Might  mark  thy  distant  flight  to  do  thee  wrong, 
As,  darkly  limned  upon  the  crimson  sky, 

Thy  figure  floats  along. 


There  is  a  Power  whose  care 
Teaches  thy  way  along  that  pathless  coast,— 
The  desert  and  illimitable  air, — 

Lone  wandering,  but  not  lost. 

All  day  thy  wings  have  fanned, 
At  that  far  height,  the  cold,  thin  atmosphere. 
Yet  stoop  not,  weary,  to  the  welcome  land 
Though  the  dark  night  is  near. 

And  soon  that  toil  shall  end; 
Soon  shalt  thou  find  a  summer  home,  and  rest. 
And  scream  among  thy  fellows;  reeds  shall  bend. 

Soon,  o'er  thy  sheltered  nest. 

Thou'rt  gone,  the  abyss  of  heaven 
Hath  swallowed  up  thy  form;  yet  on  my  heart 
Deeply  hath  sunk  the  lesson  thou  hast  given, 

And  shall  not  soon  depart. 

He  who,  from  zone  to  zone, 
Guides  through  the  boundless  sky  thy  certain  flight. 
In  the  long  way  that  I  must  tread  alone 

Will  lead  my  steps  aright," 

— William  Cullen  Bryant. 

Pope's  translation  of  the  Iliad  has  won  enduring 
fame.  This  is  not  because  of  the  accuracy  of  the 
translation.  The  eminent  critic  Richard  Bentley 
said  of  it :  'Tt  is  a  pretty  poem,  Mr.  Pope,  but  you 
must  not  call  it  Homer."  Nevertheless,  Pope  has 
caught  the  movement  and  action  of  the  Homeric 
poem,  and  rendered  it  into  almost  faultless,  and 
often  thrilling,  English  verse.    The  poem  as  it  stands 


SPECIMENS  OF  POWER  273 

is  infinitely  superior  to  the  same  poet's  trashy  and 
petty  "Rape  of  the  Lock,"  and  has  brought  a  multi- 
tude of  readers  as  near  as  they  could  ever  come  to 
knowing  Homer.  Specimens  of  beautiful  English 
verse  may  be  found  by  opening  the  book  almost 
anywhere.  See  with  what  impressiveness  the  march 
of  the  princely  envoys  of  Agamemnon  to  Achilles 
is  told  in  a  single  couplet : 

"Through  the  still  night  they  walked  and  heard  the  roar 
Of  murmuring  billows  on  the  sounding  shore." 

From  the  overwhelming  abundance  of  oratorical 
material,  let  us  choose  but  three  brief  paragraphs : 

JUSTICE  TO  AMERICA 

"I    contend   not    for    indulgence,    but    for   justice,    to 

America The  spirit  that  now  resists  your  taxation 

in  America  is  the  same  which  formerly  opposed  loans, 
benevolences,  and  ship-money  in  England; — the  same 
spirit  which  called  all  England  on  its  legs,  and  by  the 
Bill  of  Rights  vindicated  the  English  Constitution;  the 
same  spirit  which  established  the  great  fundamental,  es- 
sential maxim  of  your  liberties,  that  no  subject  of  England 
shall  be  taxed  but  by  his  own  consent.  This  glorious 
Whig  spirit  animates  three  millions  in  America,  who  pre- 
fer poverty  with  liberty  to  gilded  chains  and  sordid 
affluence;  and  who  will  die  in  defence  of  their  rights  as 
men,  as  freemen.  What  shall  oppose  this  spirit,  aided  by 
the  congenial  flame  glowing  in  the  breast  of  every  Whig 
in  England?  ' 'Tis  liberty  to  liberty  engaged,'  that  they 
will  defend  themselves,  their  families,  and  their  country. 
In  this  great  cause  they  are  immovably  allied;  it  is  the 
alliance   of  God  and  nature — immutable,   eternal, — fixed 

as  the  firmament  of  heaven This  wise  people  speak 

out.    They  do  not  hold  the  language  of  slaves.    They  do 

18 


274  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

not  ask  you  to  repeal  your  laws  as  a  favor.  They  claim 
it  as  a  right — they  demand  it.  And  I  tell  you  the  acts 
must  be  repealed.  We  shall  be  forced  ultimately  to  re- 
tract. Let  us  retract  while  we  can,  not  when  we  must. 
I  say  we  must  necessarily  undo  these  violent,  oppressive 
acts.  They  must  be  repealed.  You  will  repeal  them.  I 
pledge  myself  for  it  that  you  will,  in  the  end,  repeal  them.* 
I  stake  my  reputation  on  it.  I  will  consent  to  be  taken 
for  an  idiot,  if  they  are  not  finally  repealed.  Avoid,  then, 
this  humiliating,  this  disgraceful  necessity.  Every  motive 
of  justice  and  of  policy,  of  dignity  and  of  prudence,  urges 
you  to  allay  the  ferment  in  America  by  a  removal  of  your 
troops  from  Boston,  by  a  repeal  of  your  acts  of  Parlia- 
ment." 

— William   Pitt,   Earl   of   Chatham,   in  the   House   of 
Lords,  Jan.  20,  1775. 

PERSONALITY  vs.  PATRIOTISM 

"It  is  the  greatest  courage  to  be  able  to  bear  the  im- 
putation of  the  want  of  courage.  But  pride,  vanity, 
egotism,  so  unamiable  and  offensive  in  private  life,  are 
vices  which  partake  of  the  character  of  crimes  in  the 
conduct  of  public  affairs.  The  unfortunate  victim  of  these 
passions  can  not  see  beyond  the  little,  petty,  contemptible 
circle  of  his  own  personal  interests.  All  his  thoughts  are 
withdrawn  from  his  country,  and  concentrated  on  his 
consistency,  his  firmness,  himself.  The  high,  the  exalted, 
the  sublime  emotions  of  a  patriotism  which,  soaring 
toward  heaven,  rises  far  above  all  mean,  low,  or  selfish 
things,  and  is  absorbed  by  one  soul-transporting  thought 
of  the  good  or  glory  of  one's  country,  are  never  felt  in 
his  impenetrable  bosom.  That  patriotism  which,  catching 
its  inspiration  from  the  immortal  God,  and,  leaving  at  an 
immeasurable  distance  below  all  lesser,  groveling,  personal 
interests  and  feelings,  animates  and  prompts  to  deeds 
of  self-sacrifice,  of  valor,  of  devotion,  and  of  death  it- 


*  This  prediction  was  fulfilled  by  the  repeal  of  the  acts  three  years 
.later;  when,  however,  it  had  become  too  late. 


SPECIMENS   OF   POWER  275 

self, — that  is  public  virtue ;  that  is  the  noblest,  the  sub- 
limest  of  all  public  virtues." 

— Henry  Clay  {1841). 

THE  PLATFORM  OF  THE  CONSTITUTION 

"Finally,  the  honorable  member  declares  that  he  shall 
now  march  off,  under  the  banner  of  State  rights 

Let  him  go.  I  remain.  I  am  where  I  ever  have  been, 
and  ever  mean  to  be.  Here,  standing  on  the  platform 
of  the  general  Constitution, — a  platform  broad  enough 
and  firm  enough  to  uphold  every  interest  of  the  whole 
country, — I  shall  still  be  found.  Intrusted  with  some  part 
in  the  administration  of  that  Constitution,  I  intend  to  act 
in  its  spirit  and  in  the  spirit  of  those  who  framed  it 

Standing  thus,  as  in  the  full  gaze  of  our  ancestors  and 
our  posterity,  having  received  this  inheritance  from  the 
former  to  be  transmitted  to  the  latter,  and  feeling  that  if 
I  am  born  for  any  good  in  my  day  and  generation,  it  is 
for  the  good  of  the  whole  country, — no  local  policy,  no 
local  feeling,  no  temporary  impulse,  shall  induce  me  to 
yield  my  foothold  on  the  Constitution  and  the  Union.  I 
move  off  under  no  banner  not  known  to  the  whole  Amer- 
ican people,  and  to  their  Constitution  and  laws.  No,  Sir  I 
these  walls,  these  columns 

'fly 

From  their  firm  base  as  soon  as  I !' 
I  came  into  public  life,  Sir,  in  the  service  of  the  United 
States.  On  that  broad  altar  my  earliest  and  all  my  public 
vows  have  been  made.  I  propose  to  serve  no  other  master. 
So  far  as  depends  on  any  agency  of  mine,  they  shall  con- 
tinue, United  States  ; — united  in  interest  and  in  affection ; 
united  in  everything  in  regard  to  which  the  Constitution 
has  decreed  their  union;  united  in  war,  for  the  common 
defense,  the  common  renown,  and  the  common  glory;  and 
united,  compacted,  knit  firmly  together  in  peace  for  the 
common  prosperity  and  happiness  of  ourselves  and  our 
children." 

— Daniel  Webster  {1838). 


276  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

Before  leaving  the  subject,  we  must  not  fail  to 
remark  the  majestic  sweep  of  the  Jacobean  English 
in  the  Authorized  Version  of  the  Scriptures : 

"The  Lord  hath  his  way  in  the  whirlwind  and  in  the 
storm,  and  the  clouds  are  the  dust  of  his  feet. 

He  rebuketh  the  sea,  and  maketh  it  dry,  and  drieth  up 
all  the  rivers;  Bashan  languisheth  and  Carmel,  and  the 
flower  of  Lebanon  languisheth. 

The  mountains  quake  at  him,  and  the  hills  melt,  and 
the  earth  is  burned  at  his  presence,  yea,  the  world,  and 
all  that  dwell  therein. 

Who  can  stand  before  his  indignation?  and  who  can 
abide  in  the  fierceness  of  his  anger?  his  fury  is  poured 
out  like  fire,  and  the  rocks  are  thrown  down  by  him. 

The  Lord  is  good,  a  strong  hold  in  the  day  of  trouble; 
and  he  knoweth  them  that  trust  in  him." 

— Nahuni  i,  3-7. 

Nor  may  we  overlook  the  grand  Christian  lyrics, 
the  "Hymns  of  the  Ages."  It  is  true  that  many 
devout  souls  have  expressed  the  heart's  devotion  in 
feeble  verse,  whence  many  persons  have  a  vague 
idea  that  all  religious  song  is  marked  by  literary 
inferiority.  Take  for  a  single  example  to  the  con- 
trary this  triumphant  hymn  of  Dean  Henry  Alford, 
learned  as  he  was  devout : 

"Ten  thousand  times  ten  thousand, 

In  sparkling  raiment  bright, 
The  armies  of  the  ransom'd  saints 

Throng  up  the  steeps  of  light : 
'Tis  finished !  all  is  finished, 

Their  fight  with  death  and  sin: 
Fling  open  wide  the  golden  gates, 

And  let  the  victors  in. 


SPECIMENS  OF  POWER  277 

What  rush  of  hallelujahs 

Fills  all  the  earth  and  sky! 
What  ringing  of  a  thousand  harps 

Bespeaks  the  triumph  nigh  ! 
O  day  for  which  creation 

And  all  its  tribes  were  made ! 
O  joy,  for  all  its  former  woes 

A  thousandfold  repaid. 

Oh,  then  what  raptur'd  greetings 

On  Canaan's  happy  shore ! 
What   knitting   severed    friendships   up, 

Where  partings  are  no  more !" 

There  is  true  poetry  in  such  hymns  as  Faber's 
"There's  a  wideness  in  God's  mercy  like  the  wide- 
ness  of  the  sea";  in  Newman's  "Lead,  kindly 
light";  in  Addison's  "The  spacious  firmament  on 
high,"  and  in  many  another.  The  great  chants 
and  anthems  of  the  church  lay  a  solemn,  reverent 
hush  upon  the  soul.  The  world  will  never  forget 
the  hymn  of  the  heroic  band  while  the  Titanic  was 
sinking,  "Nearer,  My  God,  to  Thee!"  Many  of 
our  simplest  English  hymns  have  been  found  so 
expressive  that  they  have  followed  the  path  of  En- 
glish and  American  missions  all  around  the  globe, 
and  been  translated  into  all  the  languages  of  the 
earth.  Creeds,  indeed,  change;  theological  concep- 
tions change;  but  it  is  narrow  and  petty  to  reject 
because  of  some  theological  disagreement  the  aspir- 
ing trust  and  longing  expressed  in  the  hymn  of  a 
soul  that  mightily  believed.  We  need  only  to  be  big 
enough  to  draw  into  our  own  souls  the  faith,  devo- 


278  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

tion,  love,  patience,  rapture,  triumph,  that  breathe 
in  the  noblest  and  sweetest  Christian  lyrics  of  the 
ages. 

It  will  be  observed  that  this  little  collection  of 
"specimens"  has  omitted  most  of  the  masterpieces 
of  English  expression,  and  purposely,  because  those 
have  been  read  and  recited  so  often  that  the  mind 
of  the  average  reader  flinches  away  from  them.  We 
often  envy  the  boys  and  girls  to  whom  these  are  to 
come  with  the  surprize  of  novelty,  and  wish  we  could 
go  back  to  read  the  choicest  selections  of  our  litera- 
ture for  the  first  time.  The  nearest  approach  to  such 
delight  is  by  reversing  the  method  followed  in  this 
chapter. 

Get  these  gems  in  their  setting.  Read  the  works 
containing  them,  until  through  their  context  they 
flash  upon  you,  no  longer  as  "familiar  quotations," 
but  as  integral  parts  of  what  is  great  or  beautiful, 
even  without  them.  If  you  are  tired  of  the  very 
mention  of  "The  quality  of  mercy  is  not  strained," 
read  the  "Merchant  of  Venice,"  till  you  come  upon 
the  tender  plea  at  the  crucial  moment  of  the  trial 
for  Antonio's  life,  and  it  will  be  new  and  moving 
to  your  heart,  almost  as  if  never  read  before.  So 
Milton's  lines,  beginning,  "Now  came  still  evening 
on  and  twilight  gray — "  have  a  new  beauty  amid  the 
description  of  Paradise. 

In  every  garden  there  will  be  one  flower  the  most 
exquisite.  But  it  is  ill  to  be  oblivious  of  the  garden. 
So  you  may  pass  unnoticed 


SPECIMENS  OF  POWER  279 

"A  violet  by  a  mossy  stone 
Half  hidden  from  the  eye, 
Fair  as  a  star  when  only  one 
Is  shining  in  the  sky." 

Often  you  find  that  the  perfect  rose,  when  cut,  has 
lost  something.  The  eye  is  no  longer  led  up  to  it 
by  gradations  and  associations  of  kindred  or  con- 
trasted beauty.  "Literary  selections"  have  valuable 
use  as  suggestive,  refining,  inspiring;  but  their  fullest 
and  best  use  is  when  they  lead  us  to  the  sources 
from  which  they  are  taken,  to  read  at  first  hand  the 
masterpieces  of  literature. 


X 

ENGLISH  A  WORLD-LANGUAGE 


X 

ENGLISH  A  WORLD-LANGUAGE 

It  is  possible  to  travel  twice  round  the  world  on 
different  lines  of  progress,  and  wherever  we  set  foot 
we  shall  be  standing  in  countries  where  English 
is  the  dominant  language.  Thus  we  may  sail  from 
Liverpool  to  Queenstown,  thence  across  the  Atlantic 
to  Newfoundland,  up  the  St.  Lawrence  between 
British  shores  to  Montreal  and  Quebec;  then  jour- 
ney by  land  over  the  vast  Dominion  of  Canada  to 
the  Pacific,  across  that  ocean  to  the  British  Crown 
Colony  of  Hongkong,  with  its  population  of 
561,000;  skirt  the  wide  shores  of  Burmah  and  British 
India,  where  great  cities,  like  Calcutta,  with  its 
population  of  a  million  and  a  half,  and  Madras, 
with  half  a  million,  are  predominantly  English  in 
speech;  pass  through  the  Straits  Settlements,  touch- 
ing at  the  British  city  of  Singapore,  land  at  Aden, 
sail  up  the  Red  Sea,  and  through  the  Suez  Canal, 
touching  at  Suez  and  Port  Said  and  Alexandria, 
and  making  a  detour  to  Cairo ;  thence  onward  to  the 
island  of  Cyprus,  the  island  of  Malta,  anchor  under 
the  British  fortress  of  Gibraltar,  where  the  ''Pillars 
of  Hercules"  fixed  the  western  limit  of  the  ancient 
world,  thence  sail  back  to  our  starting  point,  and 
not  have  been  one  moment  outside  the  sweep  of 

283 


284  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

British  dominion  nor  away  from  the  hearing  of 
Enghsh  speech. 

Once  again  we  may  set  out  from  England,  touch 
at  the  Bermudas,  the  Bahamas,  Jamaica,  and  other 
West  Indian  islands,  at  British  Honduras,  British 
Guiana,  coast  along  South  America,  visiting  the 
Falkland  Islands  under  the  British  flag,  then  on  into 
the  Pacific  to  British  North  Borneo  and  New  Zea- 
land, and  the  continental  island  of  Australia;  touch 
at  British  East  Africa;  thence  shape  our  course  for 
Cape  Town,  where  Britain  holds  the  whole  southern 
extremity  of  Africa;  then  northwesterly  to  the  chain 
of  colonies  and  protectorates  of  British  West  Africa 
with  a  total  territory  of  447,500  square  miles;  then 
northward,  touching  at  the  Channel  Islands;  and  so 
to  England  again ; — and  all  the  lands  visited  in  this 
second  journey  are  under  British  dominion,  with 
English  everywhere  the  dominant  speech.  Draw 
the  two  routes  on  the  world-map  and  the  lines  will 
nowhere  intersect.  But  if  we  were  then  to  trace  the 
scattered  islands  under  British  control  in  all  parts 
of  the  globe — Ascension  Island,  St.  Helena,  Mau- 
ritius, Christmas  Island,  the  Cocos,  Cook,  and  Fiji 
islands,  and  many  another — the  lines  connecting 
these  points  and  groups  would  quickly  interlace, 
throwing  a  tangled  spider's  web  across  the  seas. 

Yet  this  survey  has  touched  but  the  outer  rim  of 
British  territory,  the  United  Kingdom  of  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland  reaching  through  its  outlying 
islands  far  toward  the  Arctic  Circle;  British  India, 


ENGLISH  A  WORLD-LANGUAGE      285 

stretching  over  forty  degrees  of  latitude  and  well 
nigh  thirty  of  longitude;  Australia,  a  continent  with 
more  than  three  million  square  miles;  Alexandria 
and  Cape  Town,  the  gateways  to  a  succession  of 
British  colonies  and  protectorates  extending  almost 
without  a  break  from  the  Mediterranean  to  the 
South  A.tlantic,  so  that  at  some  time  the  dream  of 
a  "Cape  to  Cairo  railroad,"  under  British  control, 
may  be  made  a  reality.  We  recall  the  ringing  tribute 
of  Daniel  Webster  to  British  genius  for  expansion : 

"A  power  which  has  dotted  over  the  surface  of  the 
whole  globe  with  her  possessions  and  military  posts, 
whose  morning  drumbeat,  following  the  sun  and  keep- 
ing company  with  the  hours,  circles  the  earth  with  one 
continuous  and  unbroken  strain  of  the  martial  airs  of 
England." 

All  these  various  territories  interact  and  inter- 
lock, so  that  no  traveler  can  pass  around  the  earth 
in  any  direction  without  touching  at  British  ports 
and  sailing  through  straits  commanded  by  British 
guns;  and  at  every  one  of  these  ports  his  readiest 
official  and  business  communication  will  be  in  the 
English  language. 

And  yet  the  story  is  not  told.  We  may  leave  the 
protection  of  the  British  flag,  and  under  the  Stars 
and  Stripes  traverse  the  continent-wide  United 
States,  three  thousand  miles  from  Portland,  Maine, 
to  Portland,  Oregon,  sail  past  the  Pacific  shore  of 
the  Dominion  of  Canada,  follow  the  southern  coast 
of  Alaska  and  the  chain  of  one  hundred  and  fifty 


286  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

Aleutian  islands  reaching  westward  almost  to  the 
shore  of  Asia;  thence  a  southwesterly  course  will 
bring  us  to  the  Philippines,  touching  on  the  way  at 
the  United  States  naval  station  of  Guam ;  then  south- 
ward, crossing  the  equator,  to  Tutuila  and  the 
Samoan  Islands;  then  almost  due  north  to  the 
Hawaiian  Islands,  frontier  outposts  of  the  re- 
public; then  southeastwardly  to  Panama,  cross- 
ing the  Canal  Zone  under  the  American  flag; 
then  northeastwardly  to  the  United  States  island  of 
Porto  Rico;  thence  to  Florida  and  up  the  Atlantic 
coast  of  the  continental  United  States  to  the  Cana- 
dian boundary  on  the  eastern  shore,  and  we  have 
traversed  i8o  degrees  of  longitude; — we  have  gone 
half  round  the  earth  again,  all  under  the  flag  of  the 
United  States,  and  everywhere  with  free  com- 
munication in  English  speech. 

On  a  map  or  globe  where  national  territory  is 
shown  each  in  distinctive  color,  it  is  fairly  startling 
to  see  how  nearly  the  British  dominion  is  omni- 
present on  the  earth.  If  we  could  have  a  map 
colored  according  to  the  dominion  of  the  English 
speech,  that  language  would  seem  to  be  well  on  the 
way  to  territorial  possession  of  the  world. 

British  territory  aggregates  12,780,380  square 
miles,*  with  a  population  of  441,440,000;  United 
States  territory  aggregates  3,574,658  square  miles, 
with  a  population  of  105,000,000.  Adding  these 
items,   we  find   that  the   English-speaking  peoples 

*  Statistics  from  the  "Statesman's  Year  Book"  of  1919. 


ENGLISH  A  WORLD-LANGUAGE      287 

dominate  16,335,038  square  miles,  inhabited  by  a 
population  of  546,410,000.  The  entire  land  surface 
of  the  earth  is  credibly  estimated  at  55,699,315 
square  miles  and  the  population  at  something  over 
1,500,000,000.  Thus,  more  than  one-fourth  of  the 
land  surface  of  the  globe  and  more  than  one-third 
of  its  population  are  under  the  dominion  of  the 
English-speaking  peoples.  The  number  of  people 
speaking  English  as  their  vernacular  has  been 
credibly  estimated  at  160,000,000.  Never  before 
in  the  whole  march  of  time  did  any  one  language 
have  such  wide  ascendancy  over  the  inhabited  earth. 

Analysis  only  deepens  the  wonder.  The  countries 
where  English  is  the  vernacular — the  United  King- 
dom of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  the  Dominion  of 
Canada,  and  the  United  States  of  America — are 
world-moving  and  world-molding  powers. 

The  largest  cities  of  the  earth  are  London, 
England,  with  a  total  population  of  7,251,358,*  and 
New  York  in  the  United  States  with  a  population 
of  5,620,048.  The  largest  non-English  cities  to  be 
brought  into  comparison  with  these  are  Berlin 
(2,071,257),  Paris  (2,888,110),  Tokio  (2,244,796), 
and  Petrograd  (2,318,645),  each  falling  some 
3,000,000  short  of  either  great  English-speaking 
metropolis.  The  American  city  of  Chicago  stands 
in  a  separate  class,  with  a  population  of  2,701,705. 
Thus  of  seven  cities  of  the  two-million  class,  three 


*  These  figures  are   for  what  is  known   as  "Greater   I,ondon";    Regis- 
tration London"  contains  4,521,685. 


288  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

are  in  English-speaking  countries;  and  these  three 
have  an  aggregate  population  of  15,573,111,  while 
the  aggregate  population  of  the  other  four  is  but 
9,522,808.  Of  180  cities  listed  at  200,000  to  2,000,- 
000,  forty-eight,  or  more  than  one-fourth  of  the 
whole  number,  are  in  the  homelands  of  English. 
This  statement  takes  no  account  of  cities  or  ports 
in  outlying  British  or  American  possessions,  as 
Calcutta,  Madras,  Hongkong,  Singapore,  or  Manila ; 
but  includes  only  those  in  lands  where  the  English 
language  is  the  vernacular.  These  English-speaking 
cities  are  at  the  very  front  in  commerce,  manufac- 
tures, energy  and  enterprise,  humming  with  in- 
dustry, abounding  in  wealth,  prime  factors  of  the 
world's  creative  force. 

Then,  far  beyond  the  territory  actually  controlled 
by  the  English-speaking  nations,  is  to  be  traced  the 
projection  or  interpenetration  of  the  English  lan- 
guage among  nations  politically  independent  of 
British  or  American  authority.  English,  as  the 
language  of  commercial  conquest,  is  easily  at  the 
front.  The  steady  and  vigorous  push  of  British 
commercial  activity  has  long  been  felt  in  every  land. 
American  industrial  achievements  have  been  so  often 
told  that  we  are  dizzy  with  the  recital,  and  no  recital 
can  keep  up  with  the  facts. 

English  and  American  tourists  have  been  a  great 
factor  in  the  spread  of  the  language.  Their  scale  of 
expenditure  is  more  liberal  than  that  of  the  travelers 
of  most  other  nations.     The  courier  or  dragoman 


ENGLISH  A  WORLD-LANGUAGE      289 

desiring  the  most  remunerative  service  has  found  it 
necessary  to  be  able  to  speak  EngHsh.  Before  the 
outbreak  of  the  World  War,  English-speaking  at- 
tendants, guides  and  interpreters  would  meet  the 
traveler  in  every  large  city,  not  only  of  continental 
Europe,  but  of  Egypt  and  the  Orient.  English- 
speaking  guides  at  Luxor  and  Thebes  and  under  the 
shadow  of  the  Pyramids  would  relate  to  troops  of 
tourists  the  wonders  of  ancient  art  and  the  greater 
wonders  of  modern  fabrication.  When  we  consider 
that,  in  1908,  cabin  passengers  to  the  number  of 
236,781  sailed  for  foreign  countries  from  the  ports 
of  the  United  States  alone,  we  can  see  how  mighty 
a  force  this  has  been,  sweeping  in  continental  waves 
around  the  world. 

The  reflex  of  American  immigration  is  also  an 
important  agency  in  the  spread  of  the  English 
speech.  In  the  years  from  1909  to  19 13  the  immi- 
grants returning  from  the  United  States  to  Europe 
averaged  some  300,000  annually.  In  years  of 
financial  depression  the  number  has  often  been  much 
greater.  These  returned  immigrants  are  found  in 
every  land.  When  the  balloon  of  an  American 
named  Mix  came  down  in  a  Russian  forest,  one  of 
the  first  peasants  who  ran  up  to  hold  the  ropes  was 
a  Russian  who  had  been  in  America  and  was  able 
to  talk  in  English  with  the  stranger  who  had  unex- 
pectedly dropped  from  the  sky. 

These  thousands  are  not  mere  travelers  return- 
ing.    They  are  full  of  tales  about  the  power  and 

19 


290  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

opportunity  of  the  great  industrial  republic.  The 
vision  of  America  is  spreading  far  and  wide  among 
the  distant  peoples.  The  language  of  America  is 
the  language  of  hope. 

The  qualities  of  the  language  and  of  the  civiliza- 
tion it  represents  also  aid  its  diffusion.  The 
simplicity  of  its  structure  makes  it  easy  for  the 
uncultured  foreigner  to  acquire  it,  while  to  the 
scholarly  foreigner  English  comes  with  the  mo- 
mentum of  five  centuries  of  thought  embodied  in  a 
noble,  beautiful  and  impressive  literature.  No 
scholar  of  any  race  considers  himself  highly  edu- 
cated unless,  for  instance,  he  can  read  in  the  original 
the  plays  of  Shakespeare. 

All  this  leads  on  to  a  higher  thought  of  the  mis- 
sion of  the  English  speech.  It  is  a  belittling  view 
of  language  that  regards  it  merely  as  a  means  of 
communication.  Language  is  the  expression  of  a 
people's  life,  brimming  with  the  achievements  of  all 
its  past,  and  reaching  on  with  shaping  and  molding 
power  to  the  generations  yet  to  be.  Language  molds 
the  thought  of  those  who  speak  it,  exalting  or  de- 
grading. This  molding  power  of  our  language  is  a 
mighty  force  in  shaping  the  mingled  peoples  into 
one  on  American  soil.  A  multitude  of  noble  con- 
ceptions, hammered  out  in  argument,  won  by  con- 
quest on  the  foughten  field  or  reached  in  exultant 
flights  of  poetic  rapture,  have  crystallized  into  our 
forms  of  speech,  so  that  for  all  who  speak  and 
study  the  language  these  become  forms  of  thought. 


ENGLISH  A  WORLD-LANGUAGE      291 

This  wide  diffusion  of  the  English  language  has 
had  a  tendency  to  correct  the  narrowness  and  ex- 
clusiveness  that  come  of  too  intensive  culture.  It 
is  ill  for  a  people  to  be  too  self -restricted;  so  they 
lose  world-consciousness,  and  are  at  some  time 
amazed,  angered  or  dismayed  to  find  how  the  wide 
world  views  opinions  and  conduct  which  the  one 
circumscribed  nation  had  proved  to  itself  and  ap- 
proved by  and  for  itself.  But  the  English-speaking 
man  may  feel  at  comparative  ease  in  almost  any  part 
of  the  habitable  globe.  The  English  language  has 
become  greater  and  richer  by  its  widely  extended 
range,  as  it  has  expanded  to  meet  vaster  needs, 
interests,  and  opportunities.  The  Englishman  is  less 
able,  by  reason  of  his  language,  to  think  only  in 
terms  of  England,  of  London,  of  the  Thames,  the 
Mersey  or  the  Tweed,  and  the  American  less  able 
to  think  only  in  terms  of  his  own  cities,  mountains, 
lakes,  and  rivers.  Most  wholesome  is  the  broaden- 
ing of  thought,  feeling  and  sympathy  produced  by 
the  wider  outlook,  tending  to  a  larger  and  a  loftier 
humanity. 

Far  beyond  the  reach  of  the  English  language  as 
the  medium  of  trade  and  commerce,  a  competent 
knowledge  of  English  has  come  to  be  a  necessity 
of  high  scholarship  in  every  nation  to-day.  Of  the 
appreciation  of  the  literature  of  England  by  a 
foreigner  there  is  no  finer  example  than  in  the 
admirable  volumes  of  Jusserand's  "Literary  History 
of  the  English  People,"  in  which,  with  the  keen 


292  HISTORIC  ENGLISH 

insight  and  the  power  of  vivid  expression  char- 
acteristic of  his  own  people,  he  has  described  with 
such  loving  admiration  the  work  of  England's 
masters  of  literary  art  as  to  make  his  record  of 
every  period  a  story  of  fascinating  interest. 

This  world-wide  prevalence  of  the  English  lan- 
guage naturally  tends  to  a  world-wide  unity  of  those 
by  whom  it  is  spoken.  It  does  not,  indeed,  of  itself 
insure  such  unity.  The  Greek  states,  using  a  single 
language  and  all  reading  the  same  literature,  were 
practically  always  at  war  with  one  another.  The 
entire  soil  of  England  has  been  fought  over  again 
and  again  by  men  of  the  same  blood  and  language 
arrayed  in  arms  against  each  other.  The  most 
terrible  war  the  United  States  has  known  was  that 
between  the  Northern  and  Southern  States,  whose 
language  was  one.  Still,  every  traveler  knows  how, 
in  a  foreign  land,  his  heart  warms  to  one  who  speaks 
his  own  language.  The  tie  is  real,  altho  not  alwa3'-s 
strong  enough  to  resist  opposing  influences. 

So  far  the  British  Empire  as  a  whole  has  proved 
itself  a  unity.  After  the  great  error  which  the 
American  Revolution  rebuked,  England  abandoned 
the  Roman  and  Spanish  system  of  coercion  and  ex- 
ploitation of  provinces,  and  gave  to  her  distant 
colonies  virtual  autonomy.  The  Roman  colonies  and 
provinces  went  down  before  the  barbarians  as  soon 
as  the  wall  of  the  Roman  legions  was  broken.  Spain 
once  had  an  empire  on  which,  in  very  fact,  "the 
sun  never  set";  but  it  was  an  empire  of  subject- 


ENGLISH  A  WORLD-LANGUAGE      293 

provinces  each  held  in  the  strangle-hold  of  mihtary 
domination,  to  be  exploited  by  successive  officials 
whose  one  aim  was  to  return  with  sudden  riches  to 
Spain.  Hence  the  moment  Spain's  military  power 
was  weakened  these  dependencies  in  swift  succession 
threw  off  their  allegiance. 

But  Great  Britain  for  more  than  a  century  has  in 
the  main  pursued  the  policy  of  developing  and 
stimulating  the  energies  of  the  subject  peoples  by 
free  activity,  bringing  out  the  resources  of  all,  and 
teaching  the  people  how  to  defend  themselves  in 
modern  war  by  military  training  of  native  troops. 
Many  of  the  British  dependencies — Canada,  Aus- 
tralasia, and  South  Africa — are  strong  enough  to 
throw  off,  if  they  pleased,  their  allegiance  to  Great 
Britain.  Yet  nothing  has  been  more  remarkable  in 
the  great  World  War  than  the  way  in  which  these 
far-separated  dependencies  rushed  to  the  aid  of  the 
Empire.  Soldiers  from  Canada,  from  New  Zealand, 
from  Australia  and  from  South  Africa,  though  not 
compelled  by  conscription,  thronged  as  volunteers 
CO  the  imperial  standard  on  every  battle-field.  There 
is  all  this  evidence  of  an  internal  unity  of  spirit  and 
character  such  as  despotic  organization  and  military 
compulsion  could  never  secure,  and  which  is  of  the 
happiest  augury  for  the  continued  ascendency  of 
the  English  language  in  the  future  development  of 
the  race. 

W.B.C. 


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